A snack-shop owner who confessed to killing dozens of people by poisoning food at a rival’s store in eastern China was executed today, the government said, in a quick announcement about a case it had been reluctant to publicise for weeks.

The owner of a snack shop has confessed to spreading rat poison over breakfast food from a rival shop that killed 38 people in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, according to state media.

Police have arrested a man suspected of putting rat poison in food that may have killed dozens of people in eastern China, police said today.