China executed two men yesterday for their roles in a contaminated milk powder scandal last year that killed six infants and sickened 300,000.

Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping had been sentenced to death earlier this year by a court for producing and selling toxic ingredients that ended up in infant milk powder. The city’s Yanzhao Metropolitan Daily quoted a statement by China’s Supreme People’s Court as saying the executions were justified by the harm caused. “The crimes of Zhang Yujun and the circumstances surrounding them are serious, his criminal methods were vile and did extreme harm to society,” the paper quoted the high court’s execution order as saying.