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Ex-dairy boss to appeal tainted milk sentencing

FORMER dairy company chief, Tian Wenhua, lodged an appeal on Saturday against a court ruling on January 22 sentencing her to life imprisonment for manufacturing and selling melamine-tainted milk powder which killed at least six infants.

Tian, 66, the former board chairwoman of the Sanlu Group, has appealed to the Hebei Higher People's Court, according to her attorney Liang Zikan.

The Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court in Hebei's capital Shijiazhuang City sentenced Tian to life imprisonment with a fine of 24.69 million yuan (US$3.6 million) on January 22.

Tian was entitled to lodge an appeal within 10 days from January 23, according to China's criminal procedure law.

About 296,000 infants suffered kidney stones and other urinary problems due to the melamine contaminated milk products.

Sanlu was the first and biggest among all the domestic dairy producers to sell products laced with melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, which was mixed into watered-down milk to give higher protein level readings.

Sanlu decided to limit the level of melamine within 10 milligrams for every kilogram of milk, instead of ceasing the production of the tainted products, on August 1 last year, after the Hebei Provincial Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau confirmed samples sent by the company were contaminated.

Tian said last month during her trial that she made the decision not to halt production of the tainted products because a board member, designated by New Zealand dairy product giant Fonterra that partly owned Sanlu Group, presented her a document saying a maximum of 20mg of melamine was allowed in every kilogram of milk in the European Union.

Liang said lawyers may enter a not-guilty plea.

Liang said Tian should be convicted of liability in a major accident instead of manufacturing and selling fake or substandard products.

 

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