Another six high-ranking officials involved in the Shanghai
social security fund scandal received punishment on Tuesday.
Qin Yu, former chief of the city's Baoshan District, was given
life imprisonment by the Changchun Intermediate Court, in northeast
China's Jilin Province.
Sun Luyi, former deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai
Municipal Party Committee, was sentenced to 15 years in prison also
by the Changchun court. Both men were convicted of abuse of power
and accepting bribes.
Qin, 43, was found guilty of taking bribes totaling 6.8 million
yuan (US$91,891) from Zhang Rongkun, a businessman and a key figure
in the scandal.
Qin, the secretary to Shanghai's disgraced former Party chief
Chen Liangyu, was discharged from his public post on August 29 last
year, a month after he was appointed head of the Baoshan
District.
Qin joined the public service sector in 1994 and served as
secretary to Chen for almost seven years.
Zhang, once a rising star, was the first person arrested in the
scandal which was exposed more than a year ago. The scandal also
brought down a number of high-ranking officials including former
Shanghai Party chief Chen, 59. He is the highest-ranking Party
official to be axed in more than a decade.
Shanghai's social security fund scandal was exposed last year.
It involved the misuse of 3.7 billion yuan.
On Tuesday four other senior officials involved in the scandal
were found guilty by the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate Court and were
sentenced from three to 11 years imprisonment.
Ling Baoheng, former director of the Shanghai Municipal
State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, was
sentenced to eight years in prison for accepting bribes totaling
500,000 yuan in cash and gifts.
Wu Hongmei, former deputy director of the commission, was
sentenced to 11 years in prison for accepting bribes worth about
1.96 million yuan, mainly from State-owned enterprises under his
supervision and from businessman Zhang Rongkun.
Xu Wei, former vice-president of the Shanghai Electric Group
Asset Management Co, received seven years in prison for taking
bribes totaling 392,000 yuan.
Cheng Yanmin, also from the Shanghai Electric Group Asset
Management Co, was sentenced to three years in prison reprieved for
five years for bribery.
On September 23, Zhu Junyi, former director of the Shanghai
Labor and Social Security Bureau and a key figure in the scandal,
was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Zhu's case was also handled by
the Changchun Intermediate Court.
(China Daily September 27, 2007)