China court upholds convictions in milk scandal

BEIJING — A court in China upheld convictions against two brothers given hefty sentences including the death penalty for involvement in the country's deadly tainted milk scandal as two others appealed Thursday.

Six children died and nearly 300,000 were sickened after baby formula was contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, which is high in nitrogen, in an effort to fool quality tests for protein content. When ingested, melamine can cause kidney stones and kidney failure.

Four middlemen were found guilty earlier this year for their roles in supplying hundreds of tons of melamine-tainted milk to the dairies named in the scandal. Two were sentenced to death, another to life in prison, and one to eight years.

The appeals were heard Thursday in the northern city of Shijiazhuang, home of the dairy at the center of the scandal, the now-defunct Sanlu Group Co. A man who answered the phone at the Shijiazhuang Intermediate Court said justices from the Hebei Province High People's Court were there to hear the cases. He hung up before giving further details.

A report by state broadcaster CCTV said the court upheld sentences for two brothers charged with producing toxic milk products. Geng Jinping, who managed a milk production center, was sentenced to death for selling hundreds of tons of tainted milk to Sanlu. His brother, a driver at the center, was given eight years.

The death sentence has to be approved by the Supreme People's Court as is normal procedure, the report said.

This week, a northern Chinese court also accepted a compensation lawsuit against Sanlu, the first in the country to do so, state media reported Wednesday.

The court instructed a lawyer to pay a standard filing fee in the case of a couple whose infant daughter was sickened, indicating it will be deciding whether to open a trial.

"This is the first time a court has accepted a lawsuit (in the scandal), so we applaud the decision," lawyer Peng Jian said.

The government has offered one-time payouts using money from dairies named in the scandal, but families that take the money cannot sue for more unless they can prove they were forced to agree to the compensation plan.

Some 500 families have rejected the offer in hopes of winning higher compensation from the companies involved. About another 100 families accepted the compensation from the dairies but still wanted higher payouts than what the government-sanctioned plan offered.