China tycoon Long Liyuan death suspected to be due to poisoned cat meat
Police think poisoned cat meat killed China tycoon
Long Liyuan, 49, died on Dec. 23 in wealthy Guangdong province after sharing a dish of slow boiled cat meat stew, a southern delicacy, with two men over a business lunch.
One of the men, local official Huang Guang, was arrested by police on Friday on suspicion of poisoning the hotpot with a toxic herb. Police say Huang and Long had economic disputes.
Long and Huang had met for lunch to discuss a business contract. Long, who ran a forestry company in Guangdong, wanted to lease a piece of woodland and develop it, the Nanfang Daily, the mouthpiece of the Guangdong Communist Party, reported Tuesday.
They had eaten at the hotpot restaurant before, but this time the cat meat dish tasted a little different, the report said.
Police initially detained the restaurant's owner on suspicion of serving unsanitary food. But the businessman's family refused to believe it was a simple case of food poisoning, pressed the police to investigate further and offered a reward of 100,000 yuan ($16,000) for information about his death.
Guangdong is known in China as a province where people eat exotic creatures, including snakes, insects and several feline species. Many people blamed the outbreak of the Sars virus in 2002 on the poor hygiene and biological mishmash of Guangdong market stalls, some of which offer civet cats for sale.
Long preferred meat from domestic cats, and often used to go the same restaurant to eat the dish. His family dismissed the possibility of natural or accidental causes of death.
Police think poisoned cat meat killed China tycoon
Long Liyuan, 49, died on Dec. 23 in wealthy Guangdong province after sharing a dish of slow boiled cat meat stew, a southern delicacy, with two men over a business lunch.
One of the men, local official Huang Guang, was arrested by police on Friday on suspicion of poisoning the hotpot with a toxic herb. Police say Huang and Long had economic disputes.
Long and Huang had met for lunch to discuss a business contract. Long, who ran a forestry company in Guangdong, wanted to lease a piece of woodland and develop it, the Nanfang Daily, the mouthpiece of the Guangdong Communist Party, reported Tuesday.
They had eaten at the hotpot restaurant before, but this time the cat meat dish tasted a little different, the report said.
Police initially detained the restaurant's owner on suspicion of serving unsanitary food. But the businessman's family refused to believe it was a simple case of food poisoning, pressed the police to investigate further and offered a reward of 100,000 yuan ($16,000) for information about his death.
Guangdong is known in China as a province where people eat exotic creatures, including snakes, insects and several feline species. Many people blamed the outbreak of the Sars virus in 2002 on the poor hygiene and biological mishmash of Guangdong market stalls, some of which offer civet cats for sale.
Long preferred meat from domestic cats, and often used to go the same restaurant to eat the dish. His family dismissed the possibility of natural or accidental causes of death.
"He went several times to eat cat meat in the past. On each occasion, the cat was freshly killed before being put in the pot. He never had any food poisoning problems before. It must have been murder," a relative was quoted as telling the local newspaper, Xinkuaibao.
The poisonous plant is found in forests in parts of China.
Sources:
Discovery News
BBC News
Yahoo! News
guardian.co.uk
The poisonous plant is found in forests in parts of China.
Sources:
Discovery News
BBC News
Yahoo! News
guardian.co.uk
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