A former senior judge in east China's Anhui Province went on trial Thursday on charges of accepting bribes of more than 900,000 yuan (US$115,050).

Liu Jiayi, 60, is accused of taking the bribes in exchange for arranging jobs, promotions, building contracts and intervening in trials.

The Chuzhou Intermediate People's Court heard that he took the bribes when he was Party chief in Lixin County, Fuyang, from 1989 to 1992 and president of Fuyang Intermediate People's Court between 1997 and 2004. He became a vice chairman of the Fuyang Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in April 2004.

Liu, who was arrested in December last year, is also charged with accepting items such as 90 old Chinese silver dollars, a laptop computer, a set of furniture and two air conditioners. The court heard he also took bribes from 12 judges in Fuyang Intermediate People's Court in return for promotions.

The court has yet to reach a verdict.

A dozen other judges, including his predecessor Shang Jun and successor Zhang Zimin were also charged with similar offences. Shang Jun was tried in October for taking bribes of 906,500 yuan (US$115,882) from 1992 to 2005, the Anqing Intermediate People's Court heard.

Shang was also accused of accepting property worth 980,000 yuan (US$125,278) from unidentified sources. She later took posts including deputy secretary of the Fuyang City Committee of the Communist Party of China and deputy director of Anhui Provincial Health Bureau.

Zhang Zimin was tried at the Fuyang Intermediate People's Court in October on charges of taking bribes of more than 1.38 million yuan (US$176,412).

The courts have yet to issue verdicts on the cases of Shang and Zhang.

Another former judge and vice president of the court, Wang Jianmin, stands accused of taking bribes of more than 1.3 million yuan (US$166,185).

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2006)