A deputy police chief in north China's Shanxi Province is being investigated for allegedly hushing up a case involving his son who was drunk driving and beating up a traffic policeman.

Li Yali, who is also the police chief of the provincial capital of Taiyuan, was removed from both his provincial and municipal posts, Xinhua news agency said yesterday, citing a plenary meeting of Taiyuan's police department.

A source with the Taiyuan government told Xinhua that authorities acted after seeing a report of Li's misuse of power.

A video showing Li's son Li Zhengyuan beating up a police officer has been uploaded on China's leading websites.

Xia Kun, the traffic policeman, has confirmed the incident took place.

He said he stopped Li's vehicle around 7:40am on October 13 after Li made a left turn which is prohibited at a road crossing. Xia demanded both the driver and vehicle licenses. Li said he had forgotten to carry the driver's license with him and instead showed him a pass to the city's public security bureau.

But Xia insisted on holding back the vehicle license, which infuriated Li. Xia said Li then abused him and punched him in the neck and kicked him. Xia did not retaliate.

Several other police officers rushed to the scene and calmed the matter but a blood-alcohol test later showed Li was drunk driving.

Further investigation revealed he used a fake car plate. But instead of being arrested he was escorted home by some police officers, Xinhua reported.

"Senior officers were unhappy with me and told me to remove his name from the report," Xia said. "I lost sleep over the matter as I did not want to cover him up or make the leaders angry."

He said his mother received threatening messages while his colleagues mocked him.

But despite attempts to hush up the matter, it was circulated online, which alerted the Ministry of Public Security and the Shanxi provincial government. Li Zhengyuan has been fined 2,000 yuan and his driving license has been revoked.

Netizens have also accused Li Yali of selling 300,000 tons of coal, of five people involved in a case he was handling, at half the market price and pocketing millions when he was the police chief of Shanxi's Jincheng City in 2008.

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