Nine held in China murders probe

POLICE arrested nine people in south-west China suspected of trafficking mentally ill people to be murdered in mines across the country in a bid to blackmail mine owners into paying compensation, a local official said.

Mine owners in China face huge pressure to keep deadly accidents under wraps and have reportedly been found paying off journalists and relatives of dead miners to keep safety problems from coming to light.

The nine were arrested in Leibo county in Sichuan province in connection with suspected murders in nine other provinces, said an official who identified himself as the deputy director of the Leibo government’s propaganda department, Mr Jiang. He said there were 17 cases of trafficking over the last several years but did not say how many people had been murdered. “We’re making our best effort to help police elsewhere,” Mr Jiang said.