A court in Uzbekistan on Monday sentenced 23 persons, including an Indian, to jail terms for the deaths of 68 children due to contaminated cough syrup produced by Noida-based Marion Biotech Limited, reported Reuters.
The Indian convict, Singh Raghvendra Pratap, was handed the longest sentence of 20 years. He worked as an executive director at Quramax Medical, a firm that sold medicines produced by Marion Biotech.
During the trial, the authorities in Uzbekistan had alleged that distributors of the cough syrup had bribed local officials to skip mandatory testing.
State prosecutor Saidkarim Akilov had alleged that Pratap paid $33,000 (around Rs 27 lakh) to officials at the Centre for Expertise and Standardisation of Medicinal Products to skip a mandatory inspection of his products.
Besides Pratap, the court handed prison terms to former senior officials who were in charge of licensing imported medicines.
The convicts were found guilty of selling substandard or counterfeit medicines, neglecting their official duties, forging documents, evading tax and bribing officials.
The court also directed seven of the convicts to pay compensation of $80,000 (Rs 66,29,436) to the families of 68 children who died due to the syrup, and four other children who became disabled, reported Reuters.
The seven convicts will also pay $16,000 (Rs 13,25,887) to $40,000 (Rs 33,14,718) to the parents…
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