A former vice chief of China's Sports Lottery Administration was
sentenced to ten-and-a-half years in prison for taking a US$20,000
bribe and accepting an expensive cell phone, a Beijing court ruled
on Wednesday.
Zhang Weihua, the former legal representative and vice director
of the Sports Lottery Administrative Center, was handed the
sentence, Beijing Evening News reported today.
Liu Feng, the director of the center's printing department, was
sentenced four years behind bars for his role in the case, the
report said.
Zhang accepted US$20,000 in cash and a cell phone valued at
about 70,000 yuan (US$ 9,481.85) from Beijing Nanhai Sunshine
Science and Development Company in return for giving the firm the
rights to supply imported paper materials for lottery tickets. The
firm didn't have a license for import and export businesses, the
report said.
Liu accepted US$10,000 and another 10,000 yuan from Beijing
Nanhai in 2003 and 2004, the report added.
The duo, however, returned the bribe money in 2005 during a
national audit launched by the National Audit Office, the report
said.
Zhang was arrested last August for alleged power abuse after the
center was found to have misused lottery income that caused about
23.41 million yuan in losses, according to a previous report in
China Youth Daily.
(Shanghai Daily December 20, 2007)