A businessman is facing jail after being accused of supplying lethal Covid-19 hand sanitiser which killed eight people.
Partygoers in Russia reportedly drank the deadly antiseptic hand wash when they ran out of alcohol.
Investigators said more deaths were narrowly avoided after the chemical was supplied to kindergartens, schools and a prison.
Alexander Kalinin, 44, appeared in court in Yekaterinburg suspected of negligence causing serious harm to health and death from supplying sanitiser with a methanol content of up to 69 percent.
The maximum allowed is 3.5 percent.
Pictures show containers of the poisonous hand wash seized by law enforcement in Sverdlovsk region.
Some 4,879 litres have been seized so far but police believe more was supplied.
A group of nine people drank the antiseptic hand wash when alcohol ran out at a party in Tomtor village, Yakutia region.
The first three victims were a 41-year-old woman and two men aged 27 and 59.
Six others were flown by a medical evacuation aircraft to regional capital Yakutsk.
Four died and two remain in hospital. Another victim died after drinking the same sanitiser in a separate incident.
The dead were aged between 28 and 69.
Health chiefs issued warnings to people not to consume sanitiser as the methanol can cause kidney damage, blindness and death.
Kalinin faces up to six years in jail if convicted is being held under home arrest pending a full criminal investigation.
