Headlines: 2 get death in China milk scandal; furor continues

By Barbara Demick
7:56 AM PST, January 22, 2009
Reporting from Beijing -- A court sentenced two men to death today and handed out stiff sentences to others, but the sentencing seemed unlikely to quell the public furor in China's largest food-tampering scandal.


Parents of babies sickened by the formula vowed to continue a legal fight over compensation.

The sentences were given by a court in Shijiazhuang, in the Hebei province, to 21 people who stood trial last month. Those sentenced to death were Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping, found guilty of endangering public security and selling poisonous foods. Another man was given a suspended death sentence, which effectively means life in prison.

The court gave a life sentence to Tian Wenhua, the 66-year-old chairwoman of Sanlu Group, the manufacturer of the baby formula involved in many of the deaths. Tian, a former Communist party official, was the highest ranking of those who stood trial.

Nearly 300,000 Chinese babies were sickened and six died after drinking a formula that had been spiked with melamine, an additive that allows watered-down milk to pass quality tests. It was widely sold under the name "protein powder" in Hebei province, a center of the dairy industry, despite the fact that it was known to cause kidney disease.


Teng Biao, a lawyer for some of the parents, said that the men given the death sentence were scapegoats in a failed product-safety system.

"This involved the whole political and social system. There were politicians and bureaucrats who should have taken more responsibility as well," Teng said today. .

Although footage from the trials was aired on Chinese state television, all but a few hand-picked journalists were banned from attending the trials. Parents also were kept out, and at least two were detained today in Beijing in an apparent attempt to prevent them from traveling to Shijiazhuang for the sentencing. Many parents also are unhappy about a compensation settlement that they say the Chinese government has forced them to accept.

Chen Li, a mother of one of the sickened babies, said today she hoped the death penalty sentencings would deter others from similar crimes.

"People have to pay for the evil things they have done," Chen said. "They have to execute at least one to warn the others. Otherwise, it will be a vicious cycle and things will never get better."

barbara.demick@latimes.com

Nicole Liu of the Beijing bureau contributed to this report.