Student admits poisoning his fellow researcher

KINGSTON • A 26-year-old graduate student, who until late January worked as a researcher in Queen’s University’s chemistry department, admitted in court Thursday to dosing a fellow researcher with a dangerous chemical. Ziejie Wang pleaded guilty in Ontario Court of Justice to administering a noxious substance to a post-doctoral fellow with intent to endanger his life or cause bodily harm and to committing an aggravated assault on the same man by endangering his life between Jan. 8 and 29, with carcinogenic N Ni tr o so di methyl a mine( ND MA ). Wang was arrested Jan. 29, according to assistant Crown attorney Janet O’Brien, after Kingston police were called to Queen’s campus to investigate a complaint of intentional poisoning in the lab. Wang’s former roommate and fellow researcher had come to believe that Wang was tampering with his food and water. The first incident, she said, was on Jan. 8 when the victim bought a snack pie and brought it back to the chemistry lab, where he works with 17 other research students. When he ate it later, he decided it was inedible after two bites. O’Brien told Justice Allan Letourneau that those two bites had been enough to make the victim very ill, and he experienced diarrhea and vomiting. He attributed his sickness to food contamination, and brought a second pie into the lab a week later, but detected the same bitter flavour. He detected the same taste in some raisin bread he ate Jan. 22. The bread was also tasted by a lab colleague, who spit it out. And it wasn’t just in the lab. O’Brien said he detected the same chemical smell in a water flask he took on trips Jan. 19 and Jan. 26. He saved a sample of the water, and on Jan. 29 he took the advice of a friend and set up a hidden camera at his desk. Court heard that the victim brought bread into the lab, leaving it in his backpack inside a desk drawer. He was called to a group meeting, which included Wang, but Wang left the room. Less than an hour later, the victim received cellphone notification that his camera had captured video. It showed Wang at the victim’s desk, wearing gloves and using a pipette to dispense something in the area where the victim’s lunch was kept. Court was told that when Wang was later interviewed by Kingston police and shown the video, he admitted dosing his colleague’s food, but said he’d only done it once and that it was ethanol, a readily available solvent. But the victim provided samples of food and water, and chemical analysis established that the water from his flask had been dosed with NDMA, while the food contained NDMA and ethanol, and water from a plastic tube Wang used contained NDMA and diethyl ether, once used as an anesthetic, but primarily used now as a solvent. She described the NDMA as the most concerning chemical. It has strong carcinogenic tendencies and no commercial applications in North America. It’s most commonly used to induce tumours in lab animals, and it’s believed that as little as three grams of it could kill an adult human. Queen’s doesn’t stock NDMA in its laboratories but does have the precursor chemicals to make it. It wasn’t revealed in open court why Wang tampered with the food and water. Submissions on sentencing, which were expected to be made on Thursday, have been postponed until November, in part because of translation problems. Both Wang and his victim require the assistance of Chineselanguage interpreters. But the attorney general’s court services would only pay for one interpreter, who was able to accommodate both men, speaking in Mandarin during the hearing, although Wang ’s first preference was for Cantonese. The victim’s impact statement, however, is also written in Chinese, and the Kingston Crown attorney’s office was unable to obtain permission to have it translated and transcribed in English prior to Wang entering his pleas. Defence lawyer Brian Greenspan told Justice Letourneau his client had offered to pay for translating and transcribing the document. He observed that it was “rather unprecedented that an accused would pay for the translation of a victim impact statement,” but he said Wang wanted to move the matter forward.