An agricultural official has been jailed for 16 years for corrupt activities during the May 12 earthquake after an investigation also revealed he was a convicted rapist.

Hanzhong City Intermediate People's Court pronounced the sentence on Wang Anwu, the director of the grain bureau in Xixiang County, Shaanxi Province, today's Sanqin Daily reported.

Wang was convicted of taking bribes worth 466,000 yuan (US$68,211.22) and embezzling 1 million yuan to invest in a company in November 2005. The company returned the money from August 2006 to November 2007.

Wang's partner, Liu Fengxia, who headed the bureau's financial department, was jailed for seven years for taking bribes worth 206,646 yuan.

Another colleague surnamed Hu who headed the bureau's management office was exempted from criminal punishment though he was also convicted of taking bribes worth 15,000 yuan.

Wang was arrested last year after the local disciplinary authority received complaints from farmers that the government-allocated rice supply was short.

The county launched the rice program to help 20,000-plus local people affected by the May 12 earthquake. Under the 1.75-million-yuan program, farmers got half a kilogram of rice every day for one month.

The authority's investigation confirmed that 10 of the 23 towns covered by the aid program received less rice than they should have; 13,803 kilograms of rice worth 45,555 yuan went missing.

Investigations revealed that one of the two rice suppliers was only filling some 10-kilogram bags with only 8.5 kilograms of rice.

But what angered the public more was the revelation that Wang had been convicted of rape years before and subsequently been promoted.

The Xixiang disciplinary authority discovered Wang's rape conviction when it was investigating the corruption last year. They found Wang had been jailed for four years in 1984 for raping and molesting four women.

The hardware company he worked for fired him after he was sentenced but re-hired him when he was released two years later. He became head of the county's grain bureau in 2004.

(Shanghai Daily July 10, 2009)