A former official of the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) Beijing branch was executed on Tuesday morning for taking bribes and embezzling about 15 million yuan (US$1.97 million), according to a statement from Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.

Wen Mengjie, former director of the information technology department of the ABC Beijing branch, was found guilty of taking bribes worth 10.73 million yuan (US$1.4 million) during the bank's purchase of electronic equipment and computer software from February 1999 to February 2004, it said.

Wen, 50, was also accused of embezzling another 4.32 million yuan (US$570,000) from the bank during the purchase of ATMs, Beijing Evening News reports.

Wen was reported as saying that he did not ask for money, but negotiated kickbacks with four supplying companies after signing purchase contracts. Company managers and accountants had testified that Wen sought kickbacks "in various forms".

In order to secure supply contracts, the four companies had to put money into Wen's private bank account and made extra payments to Beijing Jinxin Sichuang Technology Co., Ltd., a company established by Wen, the statement said.

The exposure of Wen's case resulted from his purchase of homes with an "extremely large amount of money."

Wen was captured on closed circuit TV cameras in a bank, which showed him wearing black sunglasses and calling himself "Wu," repaying home loans worth millions with bags full of cash.

Bank staff tipped off investigators at a local anti-corruption bureau, who launched a ten-month investigation.

Investigators said Wen bought three houses in eastern Beijing in November 2002 with money "obviously exceeding his legal and reasonable income."

(Xinhua News Agency September 12, 2007)