A Chinese court on Thursday sentenced two men to death for their role in a tainted milk scandal that killed at least six children, while the woman most widely blamed for the tragedy got life in jail. Nearly 300,000 children fell ill last year after drinking milk intentionally laced with melamine. The closely watched trial of middlemen and executives from the Sanlu Group, a now bankrupt firm that had failed to report cases of infants getting sick from drinking its products, wrapped up just before the most important holiday in China. The Lunar New Year is traditionally a time for families to reunite and Beijing may have hoped the sentences would deflect public outrage about the deadly impact of the tainted milk during the festive period. Affected parents had focused their anger on Sanlu's former general manager, Tian Wenhua, and were angry she was given a life sentence and would not face execution. “She should have been shot,” said Zheng Shuzhen, a 48-year-old who said her granddaughter died in June of kidney failure after drinking Sanlu milk formula but was not included in the list of victims. “So many children died but they kept the official number down so that she could get life (in jail), not death,” she added. Tian had pleaded guilty to charges of producing and selling fake or substandard products, which state media said did not carry a death sentence. Besides the life sentence, she was fined 24.5 million yuan ($3.6 million).
