Six men have become subject to a trial in China, in which they are accused of having both made and sold the chemical that gave rise to the tainted milk scandal.

The milk is responsible for the deaths of at least six children and has also sickened a number of 300,000 other people.

The six men have been accused of having added melamine to the milk formula, in order to make it seem richer in protein.

Currently, Sanlu, the company that used to market the tainted milk, has been declared bankrupt.

Chinese authorities have stated that Zhang Yujun and Zhang Yanzhang had illegally made and sold a „protein powder” that comprised melamine and malt dextrin, having also added that the police had discovered an illegal workshop run by the two men in Shandong province in eastern China.

There, the Chinese men had manufactured 600 tons of the aforementioned powder, the workshop having been also reported as the largest source of melamine in the country.

The trial began on Friday at the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People’s Court, with lawyers expecting the sentences to start at a minimum of 10 years.

The tainted milk scandal broke out back in September, when many companies were found to had been buying the product from dealers who were adding melamine to the formula so as to make it seem high in protein.

Since then, six babies died because they were fed the tainted milk, while hundreds of thousands of people reported kidney damage, which was also blamed on the product.