Woman sentenced to death for arson in China

Beijing – A Chinese woman was sentenced to death Wednesday for arson which caused the death of three firefighters on New Year’s day this year, according to a court ruling.

Li Lijuan, 49, a former employee of the Hangzhou Yusei Machinery Co Ltd, set fire to a company warehouse at 2 a.m. Jan 1 when 193 workers were on duty, reported Xinhua citing the ruling of the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court in China’s Zhejiang province.

Three firefighters died in the rescue and another three were injured. It took nearly 400 firefighters about nine hours to bring the fire under control.

The fire caused direct losses of more than 60 million yuan ($9.76 million).

Li started the fire in revenge after she was transferred to another post and had conflicts with her colleagues in December 2012.