<div><p>A Chinese court has started to hear the first civil lawsuit seeking compensation for last year's tainted milk scandal, state-run media reported Saturday.</p><p>A district court in Beijing on Friday began hearing a case filed by Ma Xuexin, whose 20-month-old son developed kidney stones after drinking "hundreds of packages" of the poisoned milk, the China Daily said.</p><p>Ma is suing Sanlu Group, the dairy firm at the centre of the controversy, and a Beijing supermarket, where he bought the milk, for a total 55,184 yuan (8,083 dollars), the paper said.</p><p>Several courts around the country have accepted compensation cases filed by parents of children who were sickened by the milk, but Ma's was the first to be heard in court, it said.</p><p>The hearing started three days after China executed two men for their roles in the scandal which erupted just after the Beijing Olympic Games in August last year.</p><p>Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping had been sentenced to death earlier this year by a court in the northern city of Shijiazhuang for producing and selling toxic ingredients that ended up in the infant milk powder, Xinhua news agency said.</p><p>At least six infants died and nearly 300,000 were made sick last year by milk powder contaminated by the industrial chemical melamine, which was added to milk supplies to give the appearance of a higher protein content.</p><p>The substance caused kidney stones and other urinary problems in the infants.</p><p>Altogether 21 people have been convicted for their roles in the scandal including former Sanlu boss Tian Wenhua, who was given life in prison.</p><p>One other person was given a suspended death penalty, a sentence that routinely gets commuted to life in jail, while 15 others were imprisoned for terms ranging from two to 15 years.</p><p>The Sanlu Group, once one of China's largest dairy manufacturers, was declared bankrupt in February after having amassed 1.1 billion yuan (161 million dollars) of debt, Xinhua reported at the time.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=64392022&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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