Tarnobrzeg prosecutor's office has tightened the charges against the S. couple, suspected of fatal poisoning with the meat jelly they made. They will be held responsible not for exposing people to direct danger of losing their lives, but for causing death by negligence. They face up to five years in prison.
This concerns a case of food poisoning after eating meat products purchased at a market in Nowa Dęba (Podkarpackie Province), as a result of which a 54-year-old man died and two women aged 67 and 72 were taken to hospital.
In the case, a couple from near Mielec were detained: 55-year-old Regina S. and 56-year-old Wiesław S., who made, among other things, meat jelly and sold it at the marketplace. They were then charged that by acting together and in agreement, they had exposed the person to direct danger of losing life or suffering serious bodily harm.
Prosecutor's Office announced the change of charges in April. On Wednesday, the spokesman for the District Prosecutor's Office in Tarnobrzeg, Prosecutor Andrzej Dubiel, announced that the couple's charges had been changed to unintentionally causing the death of one person who ate jelly produced by the suspects, and unintentionally causing serious bodily injury to one of the women and moderate injury to the other. The charge was changed based on expert opinions from the Department of Forensic Medicine and the State Veterinary Institute in Puławy (Lublin Province).
The pathologists' conclusions are clear
After conducting an autopsy on the body of a man who died after eating meat jelly, and after performing toxicological tests on samples taken from his body, experts from the Forensic Medicine Institute concluded that the direct cause of the victim’s death was nitrite poisoning.
The conclusions of the pathologists are consistent with the results of the tests of meat jelly from the National Veterinary Institute in Puławy, in which experts detected nitrite in a concentration toxic to humans – more than 100 times higher than the permissible standards. At the beginning of March, the director of the National Veterinary Institute in Puławy (Lublin Province), Stanisław Winiarczyk, reported that samples of jelly from the marketplace in Nowa Dęba, which was eaten by three people, showed the presence of sodium nitrite at a level toxic to humans of 16 to 19 thousand milligrams per kilogram. He also explained that, in accordance with the regulations, sodium nitrite is used for curing meat. Its permissible content in the process of curing raw meat ranges from 100 to 150 mg/kg of product. After the technological process, the level of nitrite in the finished product is reduced to 20-50 mg/kg. Such values are safe for human health.
They are under police supervision and cannot produce meat.
The suspects Regina S. and Wiesław S. heard the amended charge on Wednesday during their hearing at the prosecutor’s office.
Prosecutor Dubiel added that both admitted to the act they were accused of and provided extensive explanations, but due to the fact that they will be “subject to further procedural verification”, the prosecutor's office is not providing information regarding their content.
The suspects, after the change of charge, face from three months to five years in prison. The S. couple were subjected to non-custodial preventive measures – police supervision and a ban on meat products and their sale.
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