Du Jiang, a civil servant from Wushan County, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, was sentenced to death with a two years' reprieve for embezzling and misappropriating public funds set aside for relocation in the Three Gorges Reservoir.

The ruling was handed down in a recent first-instant trial by the No. 2 Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing.

In accordance with the ruling, Du was also deprived of his political rights and stripped of all his property.

The court was told that from December 1998 to May 2004, Du, previously chief of the farmland protection section of the Land Resources Bureau of Wushan County, took advantage of being put in charge of the office for land acquisition with the Wushan county government and misappropriated 4.09 million yuan (about US$512,300) of land acquisition compensation funds.

He worked either independently or in collaboration with other culprits by way of forgery.

Du obtained 2.24 million yuan (US$280,000) in this crime.

In a separate case, Du was also found to have embezzled some 570,000 yuan (about US$71,000) of funds planned for land acquisition compensation.

Six farmers were found guilty of collaborating with Du in stealing the land acquisition funds from the state and were given jail terms ranging from two years and a half to life.

(Xinhua News Agency December 3, 2005)