Two senior judicial officials in Chongqing have been arrested for taking "huge amounts of bribes" in the midst of a widening corruption scandal in the southwestern city, a municipal spokesman said yesterday.

Zhang Tao, deputy chief justice of the Chongqing higher people's court, and Wu Xiaoqing, former director of the court's enforcement bureau, were reportedly put under shuanggui in June, a procedure in which a Communist Party of China (CPC) member is asked to confess to wrongdoings before a CPC discipline inspection commission.

"Their grafts have been handed over to judicial authorities," Chongqing municipal spokesman Wen Tianping said at a press conference.

Generally, graft cases are transferred to judicial departments once Party discipline commissions deem the suspects guilty.

No details were given. But media reported in June that both Zhang and Wu were suspected of abusing their power to extort money in the auction of a piece of land in the city's Jiangbei district.

Born in 1963, Zhang has a post-doctoral degree from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and joined a "doctors assistant group" to Chongqing in 1997. He was also a part-time professor with Southwest University of Political Science and Law. In 2002, he was appointed deputy chief justice of the city. Wu is believed to be his partner in the criminal activity.

Although it remains unclear whether the two are connected to gangsters, their arrests come amid a major gang crime sweep in the city.

So far, at least six senior government or judicial officials have been investigated or arrested for being involved in gang operations or sheltering gangsters. The arrests include the city's judicial bureau director, Wen Qiang, and deputy chief prosecutor for the municipal procuratorate, Mao Jianping.

More than 2,000 suspected gangsters have been captured in the sweep, including 24 leading figures, local official website cqnews.net reported yesterday. They are allegedly involved in 1,700 crimes in 50 categories such as murder, kidnapping, rape and drug dealing, the report said.

(China Daily September 18, 2009)