China Executes Two For Contaminated Milk

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Official news agency says death sentences carried out on pair who added industrial chemical to infant formula

Zhang Yujun, second right, seen here before the trial last December, was executed for endangering public safety. Photograph: China Daily/Reuters

China executed two men today for their roles in a tainted milk powder scandal in which at least six children died and more than 300,000 became sick.

Zhang Yujun was executed for endangering public safety and Geng Jinping for producing and selling toxic food, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Their sentences were upheld in March by an appeal court in the northern city of Shijiazhuang. China requires death sentences to receive final approval from the supreme people's court in Beijing, after which most are carried out by lethal injection.

Xinhua said news of the execution had been issued by the Shijiazhuang municipal intermediate people's court, although a court clerk who answered the phone today said he was unable to confirm the sentences had been carried out.

The case was one of China's worst-ever food safety scandals, involving tainting of infant formula with the industrial chemical melamine, which can cause kidney stones and kidney failure.

Melamine, used in the manufacture of plastics and fertiliser, was added to watered-down milk to fool inspectors testing for protein, and to boost profits.

Zhang, a cattle farmer, and Geng were convicted of producing and selling a fake protein powder containing melamine, much of it to producers who sold tainted milk to the now-defunct Sanlu Group, at the time one of China's biggest dairies. Geng's brother, Geng Jinzhu, had his eight-year jail sentence upheld last week.

In all 21 people involved in the scandal were tried and sentenced in January, including Sanlu's general manager, Tian Wenhua, who was given a life prison sentence after pleading guilty to charges of producing and selling fake or substandard products.

Three other former Sanlu executives were given between five and 15 years in prison.

The harsh sentences accompany an increased government focus on recurring food safety problems and an eagerness by the communist leadership to move past the scandal.

However, no public investigation was ever made into accusations that news of the melamine tainting was suppressed before last year's Olympics in Beijing because the government did not want it overshadowing the event.