WARSAW, December 8 (RIA Novosti) - A 61-year-old Czech man died from methanol poisoning in Prague, bringing the death toll to 38, the CTK news agency reported on Saturday.
A bottle found in the man’s home contained 27 percent of methanol, police said.
The first methanol death was reported in early September. Dozens of people have been hospitalized since then. Some of them went blind.
The government introduced a two-week ban on the sales of drinks with more than 20 percent of alcohol in mid-September and exports were also banned.
The police have accused some 50 people in connection with the poisoning. Three men have been charged with endangering public safety, facing up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The police say the suspects did not want to kill anybody but wanted to earn money by producing illegal liquors. However, they knew well the consequences of methanol consumption, prosecutors said.
They wanted to profit from buying cheaper components for liquor production. When mixing components together, however, they prepared a mixture with an excessive methanol concentration that eventually poisoned consumers.
