Five drug dealers were sentenced to death and three others were executed ahead of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in China.

Courts in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Fuzhou and Hefei gave verdicts on more than 20 drug trafficking cases on Monday and Tuesday.

"As the number and scale of drug dealing cases have been increasing in recent years, the court has raised its strength to crack down," said Zhang Zhijie, deputy chief judge of the Second Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai Municipality.

The court handed down sentencing on four drug dealing cases Monday. Three dealers were sentenced to death, including Wang Qihai, Gu Jun and Hu Chaoqiang.

Wang, an unemployed young man, came to Shanghai in 2007 from the southeast Fujian province. He directed others to transport drugs from his home province to his new residence. His downstream dealer was caught with more than one kg of drugs at a highway station and Wang himself was caught with another dealer while holding holding 3.5 kg of drugs.

Another seven cases were sentenced in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province. In the same case, two dealers, Zhuang Junwei and He Shihong, were given death penalties by the Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen Municipality on Monday.

The two had bought more than 20 kg of drugs and sold some of them after processing from October to November in 2001. They were caught on November 20 that year. The police found about 16 kg of drugs and processing tools at their factory.

The Supreme Court of Fujian Province announced sentences to 105drug dealers. Three were executed, including Tseng Fu-wen from Taiwan.

The court in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province, handed down the death penalty to another dealer named Chen Kangsheng, head of a big family drug factory.

Chen's factory made more than 260 kg of drugs between July 2005and early 2006. He colluded with a dealer from Taiwan surnamed Wang who was in charge of material supply and sales. Chen's family factory produced 194 kg of drugs and earned 590,000 yuan (about 85,500 U.S. dollars) from drug processing during the half year.

Chen was sentenced death in late 2006 and the penalty was authorized by the Supreme People's Court recently.

The court of Heifei, capital of Anhui province, also judged four cases Tuesday. Fifteen dealers received penalties, including two death sentences.

Dealers named Zhang Wenxian and Yan Hongbao were sentenced for dealing 400 grams of drugs.

"New challenges have been rising as new types of drugs are increasing. The mass sentence aims at increasing public awareness," said Tang Yigan, the Intermediate People's Court of Hefei Municipality deputy chief judge.

(Xinhua News Agency June 25, 2008)