CHINESE COURTS SENTENCES 13 DRUG DEALERS TO DEATH IN FRONT OF THOUSANDS

June 24, 2017:

In a joint court case by the Shanwei Intermediate People's Court and the Lufeng People's Court in China, 13 men and women on trial for drug charges were sentenced to death in front of crowds as big as 10,000.
The open hearing was held at a stadium in Lufeng, a county in the Eastern Guangdong province notorious for an ongoing drug problem, where the criminals were convicted of supplying and selling drugs.
According to local media reports, a total of 18 criminals were sentenced and only five were allowed to live.
Out of the 13 slapped with the death penalty, eight were loaded onto trucks to be executed immediately after the trial, although the executions remained private.
Footage of the post-trial scene was included in a report by The Beijing Times which showed the convicts stoically being led away in trucks accompanied by the cries of family members.
According to the South China Morning Post, this is not the first time a public sentencing has been held in Lufeng which has been called a "major drug workshop".
The news outlet also added the Lufeng court has heard 234 drug-related cases and sentenced 107 people to prison terms of at least five years in 2016 alone.
In 2015, a similar open trial was held where 38 drug dealers were sentenced - 13 of which received the death sentence while the rest received 10-year long prison terms.
Guangdong is China's largest producer of the drug methamphetamine and more than a third of it consumed locally was made in villages administered by Lufeng.
More than 3,000 paramilitary personnel, police and border guards from Guangdong raided a village near Lufeng in 2014 and seized around 3,000kg of crystal meth, according to SCMP. Out of the 14,000 population, nearly 200 people were detained.