BEIJING: China’s former justice minister faces existence in jail after a court docket passed him a suspended loss of life sentence on Thursday for taking bribes and “bending the regulation”. Fu Zhenghua’s loss of life sentence will probably be commuted to existence imprisonment after a two-year reprieve, the Intermediate Folks’s Court docket within the town of Changchun mentioned in a commentary.
The high-profile sentencing-part of a sweeping anti-graft campaign-comes simply 3 weeks earlier than a key political assembly the place President Xi Jinping is anticipated to protected an extraordinary 3rd time period. The court docket mentioned former flesh presser Fu had abused his energy whilst in a variety of senior positions from 2005 to 2021. “(He’s) disadvantaged of political rights for existence and all private assets will have to be confiscated,” it added.
Fu, 67, had approved bribes value over 117 million yuan ($16.5 million), the court docket mentioned. Between 2014 and 2015, when Fu was once head of the Beijing Public Safety Bureau, the court docket mentioned he concealed proof of suspected crimes dedicated by means of his brother, Fu Weihua, and did not take care of the case based on the regulation.
Anti-corruption power
Throughout his tenure as Beijing’s best cop, Fu is believed to have led the corruption investigation into Zhou Yongkang, the previous safety leader who was once jailed in 2015 in one of the vital anti-graft crusade’s maximum high-profile instances. Fu was once a member of the Central Political and Prison Affairs Fee and the minister of justice earlier than coming into semi-retirement in Might 2020.
He was once serving because the deputy director of the social and criminal affairs committee at the status committee of the Chinese language Folks’s Political Consultative Convention (CPPCC) — a in large part ceremonial advisory body-when anti-graft government introduced an investigation into his dealings closing October. Greater than one million officers were punished beneath the anti-corruption crusade, which critics say has additionally served as a way to take away Xi’s political enemies since he got here to energy in 2013.
The Chinese language chief has speeded up the tempo of the anti-graft crusade within the run-up to the birthday party congress in mid-October. One at a time on Thursday, the previous head of Jiangsu province’s Political and Prison Committee was once passed a suspended loss of life sentence for taking bribes value greater than 440 million yuan ($62 million), CCTV reported.
The court docket additionally convicted Wang Like of bribing disgraced former vice-minister of public safety Solar Lijun, who pleaded accountable to accepting greater than 646 million yuan ($91.2 million) in bribes in July. Solar has but to be sentenced. 3 former police chiefs got harsh sentences for corruption on Wednesday, accused of being a part of Solar Lijun’s “political clique”.
Gong Daoan, former police leader of Shanghai; Deng Huilin, former police leader of Chongqing; and Liu Xinyun, former police leader of coal-rich Shanxi province, had been sentenced in separate courts in Hebei province. Gong, former deputy mayor and director of the Shanghai Public Safety Bureau, was once given a existence sentence for accepting bribes value 73.43 million yuan ($10.4 million), state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Deng, the previous director of the Chongqing Public Safety Bureau, was once jailed for 15 years for taking 42.67 million yuan ($6 million) in bribes, CCTV mentioned. Liu, the previous best cop in Shanxi, was once imprisoned for 14 years for taking bribes value 13.33 million ($1.9 million), CCTV reported. – AFP