Police snare Shanxi kiln suspect
Mainland police have caught the labour boss accused of duping and pressing hundreds of children and adults to work as slaves at his brick factory in central Shanxi province , in a case that has shocked the country.
Heng Tinghan , the 42-year-old foreman of an underground brick factory in Hongdong county in Shanxi, was captured on Saturday night after a nationwide manhunt, Xinhua reported.
His wife, Yang Xiaolan , was also detained and police were still pursuing two accomplices.
Since late last month, more than 20,000 police in Shanxi and 35,000 in Henan have raided suspected illegal workplaces in a massive crackdown, with 168 people detained for running illegal kilns and mines in the two provinces.
Heng is accused of forcing people to work as slaves at the Hongdong brick kiln since March last year, leading to one death and at least 20 injuries under gruelling working conditions, Xinhua said. Mainland authorities had offered a 20,000 yuan reward for information leading to his arrest.
When caught in the city of Danjiangkou , in Hubei province , Heng apologised for mistreating workers but denied he was to blame for the death of a worker, a mentally handicapped man. 'I felt it was a fairly small thing, just beating and swearing at the workers and not paying them wages,' Heng was quoted as saying by the local Shiyan Evening News, adding that the disabled man was beaten to death by one of his helpers. 'The dead man had nothing to do with me.'
