Official detained after poisoned cat hotpot kills tycoon

Jan 4, 2012, 10:56 GMT

Beijing - Police in southern China's Guangdong province have detained a forestry official suspected of spiking a cat meat hotpot eaten by a millionaire who died of poisoning, local media said on Wednesday.

Long Yiyuan, who ran a forestry company in Guangdong's Gaozhou town, died on December 23 after eating the hotpot with the official and a friend, the Southern Metropolis Daily and other media reported.

Police detained the official, Huang Guang, on Friday and said an economic dispute over forestry development was believed to have led him to poison Long.

The police initially decided that Long died of food poisoning and detained the owner of the restaurant serving the cat meat hotpot, but Huang was detained after a campaign by Long's family and friends.

The Yangcheng Evening News quoted Long's brother as saying he had made enemies through his large investments in the local forestry industry.

The newspaper also quoted an unnamed friend of Long as saying the tycoon had planned to report some of his business associates to local authorities.

Despite the intrigue over his death, reports that the three men had eaten cat meat prompted an online outcry from China's growing number of animal rights activists.

The China Daily newspaper quoted Qiao Huasong, a teacher, as saying on his microblog that the news reflected the old saying that people in Guangdong province 'eat everything that flies except for planes and everything that has four legs except for tables.'

Cat meat is relatively common in the province, where one of the best-known dishes, 'dragon, tiger and phoenix,' combines snake, cat and chicken.