China catches slave-labor boss amid national uproar

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have captured a man accused of holding workers in virtual slavery, state media reported on Sunday amid a national uproar over teenagers and men forced to work in brutal, furnace-like brick kilns.

Heng Tinghan is accused of holding workers in a kiln in Hongtong county in the northern province of Shanxi. One worker died after being beaten by one of Heng's helpers, and police rescued 31, thin and scarred.

Police caught Heng late on Saturday after a nationwide manhunt, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

He has become a central villain in a national drama over possibly hundreds or more teenage and adult "slaves" forced or cheated into grueling labor in kilns, mines and foundries across Shanxi and neighboring Henan province.

When caught in the central province of Hubei, Heng apologized for mistreating workers but denied blame for the death of the mentally impaired man, a Hubei newspaper reported.

"I felt it was a fairly small thing, just hitting and swearing at the workers and not giving them wages," Heng said, according to the Shiyan Evening News. "The dead man had nothing to do with me."

The scandal has tarnished the ruling Communist Party's promises to build a "harmonious" society with improved rights and income for the nation's hundreds of millions of poor farmers.

The China Youth Daily called the coercion a "shocking disgrace" exposing officials' failure to enforce labor laws.