Two face execution for roles in Chinese baby milk scandal

Parent who's children were affected by contaminated milk speak to reporters. Photo: Getty Images

Jane Macartney

January 23 2009 04:47 AM

Two men are to be executed and one of China's top dairy company bosses will spend the rest of her life in jail after at least six babies died and 300,000 fell ill after drinking infant milk powder that was deliberately tainted with an industrial chemical.

Outside the closed court, distraught parents wept and railed against what they saw as the leniency of the sentence against the head of the dairy company Sanlu Group.

Some demanded that responsibility be laid on Communist Party officials, whom they blamed for assisting the cover-up and thus delaying a public announcement that Sanlu's baby formula had been mixed with melamine. The nitrogen-rich chemical mixed into the milk fooled tests by appearing to boost the product's protein content.

The severity of the first sentences to be announced reflected the sensitivity of a case involving milk products manufactured by a state-run venture that hid the scandal, apparently with the connivance of local officials, to avoid bad publicity during the Beijing Olympic Games in August last year.

All eyes had been on the sentencing of Tian Wenhua (66) the former chairwoman and general manager of the Sanlu Group. She was the most senior official charged in the food safety crisis, which highlighted corporate and official shortcomings as well as corruption.

Penalty

She had pleaded guilty to charges of producing and selling fake or substandard products and received the maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

In her one-day court appearance, Tian admitted that she knew of the problems for at least four months before notifying the authorities in August. Three of her colleagues were sentenced to terms from five to 15 years.

The court sentenced Zhang Yujun (40) to death for running a workshop which was allegedly China's largest source of melamine and had sold 600 tonnes to be mixed into milk.

Geng Jinping was given the death penalty for producing and selling toxic food, while Gao Junjie received a suspended death sentence, which is usually commuted to a life sentence.

Public outrage has been widespread since it emerged in September that babies across China had been poisoned after being fed the tainted formula. Melamine, usually an ingredient in plastics and fertiliser, can cause kidney stones and kidney failure when it is ingested in large amounts.

Zheng Shuzhen, from the central Henan province, was outside the court to hear the verdict. Her one-year-old granddaughter died in June after drinking Sanlu milk. She said that Tian should be executed: "I've run out of tears... that's why I came today. Even if she (Tian) dies a hundred times over, it won't lessen our hate. She has brought such harm to the public, to children."