China executes drugs smuggler

[FreeBurma@xxxxxxx]

CHINA EXECUTES BURMESE DRUGS SMUGGLER

    BEIJING, Oct 8 (Reuter) - Chinese authorities have executed a Burmese
drug smuggler in the southwestern province of Yunnan bordering Burma,
official media said on Saturday. 
    Yang Maoxian, 48, was put to death on Friday for conspiring with Chinese
drug traffickers to smuggle a total of 212 kg (467 lb) of heroin into China
from Burma on nine occasions between July 1990 and January 1994, the People's
Daily and Xinhua news agency said. 
    Executions in China are usually carried out with a bullet to the back of
the head. Chinese police arrested Yang in May after he entered China. The
Supreme Court upheld his death sentence on September 23. 
    Other suspects in the case are also subject to legal punishment, court
officials were quoted as saying. Yunnan borders the ``Golden Triangle''
drug-producing areas of Southeast Asia, a source of China's growing problems
with drug trafficking and abuse. 
    A major part of the opium and heroin that flows into China enters through
Yunnan and moves from there to coastal cities where it is sometimes shipped
abroad. 
 REUTER


Transmitted: 94-10-07 23:44:43 EDT