New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said on Friday that the Chinese government has a right "to take a very serious attitude" toward the Sanlu contaminating milk which killed six babies in China.

Key said "some horrific deaths" of young infants in China had taken place and hundreds of thousands of other infants were made ill by the contaminated milk, the New Zealand Press Association reported.

"The way the Chinese approach these things ... in the sense of the death penalty, is something for them to determine (whether it is appropriate)," he was quoted as saying.

"New Zealand does not condone the death sentence but we respect their rights to take a very serious attitude to what was an extremely serious scandal," he added.

New Zealand opposition Labor party leader Phil Goff said the death sentences for two of the men responsible for contaminating the milk "represents the seriousness with which the Chinese government regarded that."

New Zealand dairy product giant Fonterra, a 43 percent stakeholder in Sanlu, has not reacted publicly to the sentences.

(Xinhua News Agency January 23, 2009)