By Anita Chang
Shijiazhuang, China - The families of babies sickened by tainted milk anxiously gathered outside a courthouse in northern China on Thursday to await the sentencing of 21 people involved in the production and sale of melamine-tainted products.
Tian Wenhua, who was general manager and chairperson of Sanlu Group Co, the dairy at the heart of the scandal, is the highest profile official charged in the food safety crisis widely seen as a national disgrace that highlighted corporate and official shortcomings and corruption.
Tian has pleaded guilty to charges of producing and selling fake or substandard products after infant formula tainted with the chemical melamine was blamed in the deaths of at least six babies and the illnesses of nearly 300 000 others.
The defendants include three other former senior executives of Sanlu as well as 17 other people who were charged with producing, adding or selling melamine-tainted milk, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Officials at the Intermediate People's Court in Shijiazhuang, where the company is based, said the sentences would be announced on Thursday afternoon.
In a reflection of the trial's prominence and sensitivity, dozens of police officers guarded the courthouse and cordoned off the surrounding area with plastic barriers.
Officers told the victims' families to keep about 100 metres away.
Zheng Shuzhen, from Henan province, said her 1-year-old granddaughter died in June after drinking Sanlu milk.
"I've run out of tears... that's why I came today. Even if she dies a hundred times over, it won't lessen our hate," Zheng said.
She said her family has been trying to register the child's death as melamine-related in order to qualify for compensation, but local authorities have told them to "only report the ones that are still alive, not the ones that have died".
She later collapsed on the ground, sobbing for several minutes before being helped up by relatives.
Sanlu, along with the other 21 dairy companies involved in the scandal, have proposed a 1,1-billion yuan ($160-million) compensation plan.
More than 200 families have filed suit demanding higher compensation and long-term treatment for their babies.
Zhao Lianhai, who has set up a website to help organise parents whose children were sickened, said about a dozen parents from across the country had hoped to attend the sentencing but only seven showed up.
Authorities detained at least two sets of parents of melamine victims as they attempted to travel to the courthouse, said Li Fangping, a Beijing lawyer who has worked with the parents since news of the poisonings emerged.
Dong Shiliang, from southern Yunnan province, was stopped from boarding a plane in Kunming on Wednesday while Liu Donglin was being held at a Beijing police station, he said.
State media had reported earlier that Tian, the 66-year-old dairy boss, could face the death penalty but her lawyer Liu Xinwei was quoted earlier this week in the Beijing News as saying otherwise.
"According to the criminal law, there is no capital punishment for the crime of manufacturing and selling fake or substandard products.
"Therefore, the most severe penalty for her would be life imprisonment," Liu said.
During her trial on December 31, Tian admitted that she knew of problems with her company's products for months before informing authorities. The scandal was exposed in September.
Investigations showed that middlemen who sold milk to dairy companies were watering down raw milk, then mixing in nitrogen-rich melamine to fool quality tests for protein content.
Normally used to make plastics and fertiliser, melamine can cause kidney stones and kidney failure when ingested in large amounts.
The discovery of melamine in dairy exports such as chocolate and yogurt triggered a slew of product recalls overseas. - Sapa-AP