China puts 6 on trial in tainted milk scandal

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has put six people on trial for their part in a tainted milk scandal that killed at least six children and made hundreds of thousands of others ill, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

Two of the accused were tried at a court in Shijiazhuang, capital of northern Hebei province and headquarters of the Sanlu Group, the company at the heart of the scandal, the agency said.

One had produced and sold more than 600 tons of chemical melamine mixed with malt starch to the second accused, a dairy farmer from Hebei's Quzhou county.

Melamine is an industrial compound used in plastic chairs among other things, but has been used to cheat nutrition tests.

The dairy farmer then resold some 230 tons to milk collectors in Shijiazhuang and three other cities in Hebei, Xinhua said.

"Some collectors added it to raw milk and sold it to Shijiazhuang-based Sanlu Group, the country's major dairy at the center of the tainted milk scandal," Xinhua said.

After covering up the problem for several months, Sanlu admitted in September that it had sold melamine-tainted milk powder, causing kidney stones and other complications in children.

Sanlu, which halted production on September 12, has filed for bankruptcy and has some 1.1 billion yuan ($160 million) in debt, Xinhua said, citing the Shijiazhuang city government.

The Sanlu dairy group is partly owned by New Zealand's Fonterra group.