TASHKENT -- The Tashkent City Court sentenced 23 people -- including an Indian national -- to prisons terms of up to 20 years after a cough syrup imported into Uzbekistan from India killed 68 children in 2022.
In reading out the court's verdict on February 26, the judge said Indian national Ragvendra Pradar, who is the director of the Quramax Medical company that imported the medicine, received 20 years, while the former chief of Uzbekistan’s state pharmacy development agency, Sardor Kariev, received an 18-year prison term and his two former deputies, Amirkhon Azimov and Nodirbek Musaev, were sentenced to 16 years in prison each.
Several other defendants were handed prison terms of up to 10 years in prison, while the remainder received parole-like sentences.
The charges against the defendants included tax evasion, the sale of substandard or counterfeit medicines, abuse of office, negligence, forgery, and bribery.
In December 2022, amid reports about the mass deaths of children blamed on Doc-1 Max syrup, which was produced by Marion Biotech and imported by Quramax, Uzbek authorities suspended the sale of all the company's products.
Uzbekistan's Health Ministry said at the time that Doc-1 Max syrup contained the extremely toxic substance ethylene glycol.
Criminal probes over the affair have been launched in both Uzbekistan and India.
The Indian regulator has canceled Marion Biotech's manufacturing license and arrested some of its employees.
A legal representative of Marion Biotech said at the time the company regretted the deaths.
The defendants in Tashkent went on trial in August last year.
Two months before the Uzbek outbreak, cough and cold syrups made by Indian firm Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd were blamed for the deaths of dozens of children in the West African country of Gambia.
A laboratory analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that Maiden Pharmaceuticals' syrups contained "unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol," chemicals often meant for industrial use.