3 drug smugglers executed in China

FUZHOU - Three men were executed in East China's Fujian province after being convicted of smuggling a popular club drug across the Taiwan Straits, court officials said Tuesday.

Chen Tianlu, Xu Futai and Wang Zhenzong, all from China's Taiwan, were executed in Zhangzhou on Monday after the Supreme People's Court approved their death sentences, officials with the Intermediate Court of Zhangzhou said.

The three men were convicted of smuggling hundreds of kilograms of ketamine, a drug popular in Taiwan's nightclubs, from Fujian to Taiwan by boat from 2009 to 2010. They were all arrested in Fujian during drug transactions.

Chen and Xu were sentenced to death in December 2010, while Wang, in a separate case, was sentenced to death in April 2011. All three had appealed the verdicts, but the Zhangzhou court upheld the original sentences.

Drug trafficking is a capital offense in China.

In 2009, Beijing and Taipei signed an agreement to cooperate on combating cross-Straits crimes. By early 2012, police had jointly busted 10 drug rings operating across the Taiwan Straits and arrested 110 suspects, including 39 Taiwan people. More than 1.4 tons of drugs had been seized.