TASHKENT: After a six-month trial, a jury in Uzbekistan ordered 23 people to jail terms on Monday in connection with the fatalities of 68 children connected to tainted cough syrups made by Marion Biotech in India.
The Tashkent municipal court prosecutors last month revised the death toll and announced that two more people had been charged during the trials, although the Central Asian country had previously reported 65 deaths connected to the medications.
The accused, who included one Indian national, may spend two to twenty years behind bars. They were found guilty of tax evasion, selling fake or inferior medications, abusing their position, being careless, forging documents, and accepting bribes.
The person serving the longest sentence (20 years) was Singh Raghvendra Pratar, executive director of Quramax Medical, a company that distributed drugs made in Marion Biotech, India, to Uzbekistan.
Long sentences were also imposed on former senior officials who were in charge of authorizing imported medications.
The court determined that each of the families of the 68 children who died after consuming the syrup, as well as the families of the four additional children who had disabilities, would receive compensation totaling $80,000 (1 billion Uzbek sums).
Eight more drug-affected children’s parents will receive between $16,000 and $40,000. The Supreme Court declared that the court’s verdict stated that seven of the offenders will be the ones to get the reparation money.
