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Newmarket: A Canadian man accused of selling a legal but potentially deadly chemical and other items online to dozens of people who took their own lives pleaded guilty on Friday to aiding suicide, ending the prospect of a murder trial after prosecutors said a recent appellate ruling made murder charges untenable.

Kenneth Law, 60, appeared at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket, north of Toronto. Wearing tan pants, a white shirt and dark suit jacket, Law showed no emotion as he stood in a prisoner’s box and pleaded guilty to aiding the suicide of 14 Ontario residents, aged 16 to 36. He will be sentenced in September.

Law also admitted that 79 people in Britain died as a result of consuming or using products he sold, according to an agreed statement of facts spanning more than 60 pages, which took around three hours to read out in court.

Prosecutor Peter Westgate told Justice Michelle Fuerst that prosecutors would ask that 14 first-degree murder charges Law was also facing be withdrawn after his sentencing.