Zhang Shaocang, former head of a state-owned energy firm in east China's Anhui Province, has been sentenced to life in prison for taking bribes valued at nearly 10 million yuan (US$1.3 million), a spokesman with the court said on Sunday.

The Intermediate People's Court in Fuyang has also deprived Zhang, former general manager of Anhui Province Energy Group Co Ltd and chief of the company committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), of his political rights for life and ruled all his personal properties would be confiscated.

Court investigators found Zhang, 55, accepted 7 million yuan (US$900,000) of undeserved money from a local company in 1992, when he was a trade official at the then Anhui provincial planning committee, known today as the provincial reform and development committee.

He took another 2.78 million yuan worth of bribes between 1989 and 2006, when he worked as director in charge of the provincial economic information center, general manager of Anhui Province Energy Investment Co. Ltd, general manager of Anhui Province Energy Group Co Ltd and board chairman of Wanneng Energy Co Ltd.

His wife and son were also involved in his corruption case, the court said without elaborating.

The court said Zhang had promoted several bribers, given jobs to their relations, issued import permits to some companies or signed warranties to help them get loans.

He was also accused of plagiarism because the four-page "letter of apology" he read during his corruption trial at a Fuyang court in July was strikingly similar to that of Zhu Fuzhong, a disgraced former Party chief of Tongan village in southwestern Sichuan province, the Procuratorial Daily reported last week.

(Xinhua News Agency September 9, 2007)