[ 2011-07-19 ]

China executes 2 former vice mayors for bribery
Two former vice mayors in eastern China who were
convicted of bribery were executed Tuesday, the
country's supreme court said, two of the harshest
sentences handed down to high-level Chinese
officials in recent years.

The Supreme People's Court said in a statement on
its website that Xu Maiyong and Jiang Renjie had
been sentenced to death and were executed Tuesday
morning.

Corruption is widespread among officials in China,
but few cases result in death sentences unless
they are linked to murder or other violent
crimes.

Xu was convicted in May of bribery, embezzlement
and abuse of power during his time as vice mayor
of the wealthy resort city of Hangzhou, west of
Shanghai.

State-run Xinhua News Agency said Xu took bribes
worth more than 145 million yuan ($24 million),
embezzled 54 million yuan from a state-owned
property firm and illegally diverted 71 million
yuan in land purchase payments to a property
development company in which he had a stake.

The Ningbo Intermediate People's Court sentenced
Xu to death and ordered his personal property
confiscated.

The second official, Jiang, was a former vice
mayor of Suzhou city in coastal Jiangsu province.
Xinhua said he was convicted of taking 108 million
yuan in bribes from property developers between
2001 and 2004 when he was in charge of urban
planning and real estate development.

Jiang was sentenced to death by the Intermediate
People's Court of the city of Nanjing in April
2008.

Jiang helped authorities identify other suspects
in the cases, but the court still decided he
should be severely punished, Xinhua said.

The news agency said appeals by both men of their
original death sentences were rejected by higher
courts.

Although the figure is considered a state secret,
China is believed to carry out more court-ordered
executions each year than all other nations
combined.

Source - Yahoo! News

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