A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a man to life imprisonment for adding poison to frozen dumplings that left four Chinese and nine Japanese citizens ill in 2007 and 2008.

Lyu Yueting was found guilty of adding dangerous substances to food, which resulted in one person becoming seriously ill, left 12 others with minor illnesses, and caused significant loss of property from December 2007 to January 2008, the Shijiazhuang Municipal People's Procuratorate told Xinhua.

It is not clear whether Lyu plans to appeal.

The Shijiazhuang Municipal Intermediate People's Court delivered the verdict at 9 a.m. on Monday in a public hearing with the presence of journalists and officials from the Japanese embassy in Beijing.

Lyu, 39, a native of Jingxing county in north China's Hebei province, worked at the Tianyang Food Plant based in Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital, from 1993 to 2009.

He was dissatisfied with his salary and attempted to create an incident to attract the attention of managers in order to boost his salary, according to the court.