At a national meeting Saturday in Guangzhou, capital of south
China's Guangdong
Province, prosecutors are discussing tougher measures to hunt
corrupt officials who have fled overseas.??
Procuratorates across the country should work harder to retrieve
corrupt officials who have fled China, said Wang Zhenchuan, vice
procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP).
Chinese prosecutors need to strengthen cooperation with other
judicial departments and establish departments that are skilled in
both foreign languages and their knowledge of law.
China has brought back 71 fugitive corrupt officials from
overseas since 1998, said Wang. But the work is not meeting the
current demand as the number of fugitive corrupt officials overseas
has increased since 2000, according to a state-backed
anti-corruption research program. The exact number has not been
disclosed.
China has only signed extradition?treaties with 19
countries so far. Most are developing countries, which are not
often the destinations for corrupt officials.
At the end of 2003, China signed the United Nations Convention
Against Corruption. The pact requires governments to enact minimum
legal standards against corruption, protect whistle-blowers and
assist other countries in detecting the flow of illicit funds.
(Xinhua News Agency September 12, 2004)