During a trial on Wednesday, Uzbekistan state prosecutors alleged that the distributors of a contaminated Indian cough syrup which killed 65 children in the country, paid local officials a bribe of $33,000 to skip mandatory testing, according to a report.
In Uzbekistan, a total of 21 people have been put on trial, 20 of whom are Uzbeks and one Indian, over the deaths of the children. Three of those of trial (an Indian and two Uzbekistan nationals) are executives of Quramax Medical, the company that sold medicines produced by India’s Marion Biotech, in Uzbekistan.
Quramax CEO Singh Raghvendra Pratar, allegedly paid officials at the state centre for expertise and standardisation of medicinal products worth $33,000 so that they would skip a mandatory inspection of its products, as per state prosecutor Saidkarim Akilov, Reuters reported.
It was unclear from the prosecutor’s statement whether the inspection was supposed to involve tests in Uzbekistan, or a request for tests to be carried out by the producer in India.
While Pratar denied the charges, he admitted to handing over the sum to officials through an intermediary as a "token of appreciation". He said he had no idea how and by whom that money was used later, the report further added.
Of the 21 defendants, seven pleaded guilty to at least some of the charges against them, which included tax evasion, sale of substandard or counterfeit medicines, abuse of office, negligence, forgery, and bribery.
Officials have not said why 45 deaths had remained unreported since last year.
State prosecutors also said on Wednesday that Quramax had imported Marion Biotech medicines at an inflated price via two Singapore-based intermediary companies, which prompted tax evasion charges.
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