More than 50 people have died in little more than a week after drinking bootleg liquor in western Indonesia, including in the capital, Jakarta, officials said Monday.
Police tape covers a home-based alcohol factory in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, April 9, 2018. Nearly 50 people have died in a little more than a week after drinking bootleg liquor in western Indonesia, including Jakarta, the capital, officials said Monday. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)
In the latest incident, 20 people died between Thursday and Monday in Cicalengka subdistrict near the West Java capital of Bandung.
Head of the state-run hospital in Cicalengka, Yani Sumpena, said that 19 people died at the hospital and one was dead on arrival.
In total, some 40 people were admitted with symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath and unconsciousness, and several are still being treated, Sumpena said.
In Bandung itself, police chief Hendro Pandowo said three people died on Sunday after being admitted to hospitals the day before suffering the symptoms of alcohol poisoning.
High taxes on alcohol have spawned a black market for booze among the poor in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, where drinking alcohol is frowned upon but not illegal under civil law. Potentially lethal methanol can be a byproduct of bootleg distilling and the tainted alcohol is also sometimes mixed with soft drinks. In February 2016, about 30 people died in the central Java city of Yogyakarta after drinking bootleg alcohol.
The deaths since the beginning of April total 54. There were six deaths from drinking compromised liquor in the easternmost region of Papua in late March.
Media reports said police had closed four liquor stores in the Cicalengka region and confiscated dozens of jerry cans containing palm wines and hundreds of bottles of various types of liquor.
Jakarta police spokesman Argo Yuwono said Monday that 31 people have died in Jakarta and its satellite cities of Depok and Bekasi from alcohol poisoning in separate incidents since the beginning of the month.
Police have arrested at least four suspects in the Jakarta area who are accused of selling tainted liquor.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The man who fatally shot retired NFL star Will Smith during a confrontation following a car crash in 2016 is scheduled for sentencing Thursday in a New Orleans courtroom.
It's the second time Cardell Hayes, 36, has faced sentencing in Smith's death. He was convicted of manslaughter in December 2016 and later sentenced to 25 years. But the jury vote had been 10-2 and the conviction was later tossed after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed such non-unanimous verdicts.
Hayes was released on bond after having served more than four years of the original sentence. He remained free during multiple retrial delays, some due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But he was taken back into custody following the unanimous Jan. 27 verdict and has been awaiting sentencing at the New Orleans jail.
Smith was shot eight times — seven times in the back — during a confrontation with Hayes that happened after Hayes' SUV struck the rear of Smith's vehicle.
Hayes has long said he fired in self-defense. He said he fired only because he believed a drunken and belligerent Smith had retrieved a gun from his SUV. He insisted on the stand that he heard a “pop” before he started shooting and that he did not shoot at Smith’s wife, Racquel, who was hit in the legs.
Evidence showed Smith was intoxicated at the time of the confrontation. But there was no witness or forensic evidence to back up Hayes’ claim that Smith had wielded or fired a weapon. At the January retrial, defense attorney John Fuller did not call Hayes to testify, but insisted prosecutors had failed to prove Hayes didn't fire in self-defense.
The overturned verdicts from the 2016 jury also included an attempted manslaughter conviction in the wounding of Racquel Smith. Hayes was acquitted of that charge at January's second trial.
Smith, a 34-year-old father of three, was a defensive leader on the Saints team that lifted spirits in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. He helped carry the team to a winning season in 2006 and a Super Bowl victory in 2010.
Hayes, who owned a tow truck business, once played semi-pro football and is the father of a young son.
FILE - New Orleans Saints defensive end Will Smith appears before an NFL football game against the New York Giants, Dec. 9, 2012, in East Rutherford, N.J. Cardell Hayes, the man who fatally shot the retired NFL star during a confrontation following a car crash in 2016, is scheduled for sentencing Thursday, April 25, 2024, in a New Orleans courtroom. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun, File)
FILE - Cardell Hayes enters Orleans Parish Criminal District Court in New Orleans, Sept. 20, 2023, for a hearing regarding his retrial for shooting former NFL star Will Smith. Hayes is scheduled for sentencing Thursday, April 25, 2024, in a New Orleans courtroom. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)
