A man from east China's Shandong Province has been sentenced to four years in jail by a Beijing court for claiming to be an Afghan soldier and trying to blackmail seven supermarkets including French retail giant Carrefour.

Wang Yongjian, 30, sent 16 threatening letters to Carrefour, Wumart and other chain stores in Beijing and asked each supermarket for 200,000 yuan (US$25,806) to stop him poisoning their products, according to the Shijingshan District People's Court.

"We are Afghan soldiers. We need money to go back home and fight for our country. Please bury 200,000 yuan in the hole under the advertising billboard at ..., otherwise we will inject poison into 20 products you are selling," said Wang in a letter.

"As a soldier, I really feel sorry for this. Please forgive me," read the letter.

Most of the supermarkets handed the letters to the police, according to one of the prosecutors.

It transpired from Wang's defense that he had downloaded the letter from the internet to vent the anger of his friends. They had been told by the supermarkets to remove the book stands they had set up outside the shop windows.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2007)