The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) revealed yesterday that more than 9,000 officials were found guilty of corruption in the first six months of the year and said it had investigated 6,277 industrial bribery cases.

Qiu Xueqiang, SPP deputy procurator general, told a conference of procuratorate chiefs that the industrial bribery cases involved 6,842 people.

In the second half of the year, he said, prosecutors plan to crack down on commercial bribery, dereliction of duty in large, national and local investment projects, and target misconduct that damages energy resources and the environment.

Qiu said the 9,158 corrupt officials were found guilty of offences including embezzlement, bribery, dereliction of duty and rights violations in the first half of the year.

They were among more than 24,000 officials investigated by the SPP in connection with 20,000 cases.

Some 1,679 cases of dereliction of duty leading to harm to energy resources and the ecological environment were filed and investigated in the first half of the year. They involved 1,949 people.

In future, prosecutors also plan to target officials who bend the law for the benefit of relatives or friends and will attempt to uncover negligence, the abuse of judicial power and the shielding of mafia-like gangs, as well as the covering up of serious crimes and infringements upon human rights.

Overall, the quantity of job-related crimes fell by 14 percent in April, May and June compared to the same period last year. Qiu said that was due, in part, to the global financial crisis.

Cao Jianming, SPP procurator general, vowed that all prosecutors nationwide would receive training aimed at improving their political, professional and moral capacity.

"To intensify prosecution education and training is an urgent demand for comprehensively improving prosecutors' capacity," Cao told the conference.

All procuratorate chiefs at county- and district-level, as well as middle-level officials of higher-level procuratorates, will receive at least 110 class-hours of training every year, Cao said. Other procuratorial staff will get at least 100 class-hours. The work conference on prosecution education and training yesterday also heard that procuratorates at the provincial level must ensure at least one-quarter of their staff receive training each year.

Because western Chinese provinces are short of prosecutorial professionals, SPP also plans to offer more training support to professionals in Tibet and Xinjiang, in part by fostering the development of bilingual Uygur-Chinese and Mongolian-Chinese procuratorial staff, said Cao.

He added that some prosecutors need to improve their knowledge of law enforcement, legal concepts, occupation morality and disciplinary style.

Awareness of law and policy among some staff members remains low, he said, and professional knowledge is at times outdated.

"Procuratoral staff are facing more risks of all kinds of temptation and erosion, and the public is also looking for higher standards of prosecutors' morality level," Cao added.

Mu Xincheng, deputy attorney general and secretary of the anti-corruption bureau of Fanzhi county, Shanxi Province, was detained in May for alleged financial impropriety, China Youth Daily reported last week.

His assets exceeded 100 million yuan ($14.6 million), the report said. Five of his cars were said to be worth 1 million yuan each. The case is still under investigation.

(China Daily July 17, 2009)