A former high-ranking provincial official in east China's Anhui Province has been sentenced to death with two-year reprieve for corruption charges, according to media reports.

 

Wang Zhaoyao, ex-deputy chairman of the provincial committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), took bribes of 7.04 million yuan (about US$891,000) and could not provide legitimate sources of about 6.5 million yuan in personal assets, the Procuratorial Daily said.

 

Wang was convicted by the Intermediate People's Court of Jinan, capital of eastern Shandong Province on Friday, which also ordered the confiscation of his personal property, said the official newspaper run by the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

 

Wang, 62, was appointed local Communist Party chief of Fuyang, a city in Anhui, in 1989. He was promoted to the vice governor of Anhui in 1993 and rose to the important position as provincial deputy Party chief in late 1998. He started to serve as deputy chairman of the provincial committee of the CPPCC in 2005, according to Anhui Daily, the provincial government's mouthpiece, which printed a story on Wang's trial on Saturday.

 

Wang took advantage of his Party and government positions to take bribes from 44 individuals and groups between 1991 and 2005, the newspaper said, quoting the court documents.

 

The court said Wang admitted "most of his wrong-doings", and had returned and handed in "all the bribes". He also provided helpful information relating to the investigation, according to the paper.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 14, 2007)