Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court Tuesday sentenced Li Jun, deputy director-general of Guangdong Inspection Administration for Import and Export Products, to 12 years in prison.

Li, born in 1946, was found to have used his position and power to solicit bribes worth 276,000 yuan (US$33,300 )between 1996 and 1998.

Li returned part of the illicit money after his case was revealed in June of 1998. He was formally arrested in August of that year.

An official from the court said Li's punishment had been reduced because of his confession and the refunding of some of the illicit money.

When Li, a former vice-mayor of the city of Shaoguan in northern Guangdong Province, had his house in Guangzhou burgled in June1998, police discovered that he had been taking bribes.

Li was reported to have been robbed of more than 4 million yuan (US$482,000) worth of goods, cash, foreign currency and bank deposit books.

It was brought to the attention of the procuratorial department that the amounts involved in the robbery far exceeded Li's financial capabilities, based on his income.

In another development, Guangdong Higher People's Court Tuesday upheld Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court's ruling sentencing Chen Qingquan, former chairman and general manager of Guangzhou Metro Corp, to 15 years in prison.

Chen was charged with having accepted bribes totalling more than 550,000 yuan (US$66,265) plus 8,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$1,028) between 1994 and 1999.

The Zhuhai Intermediate People's Court also handled a total of 67 corruption cases between January and November of this year, up 96 percent compared with corruption cases for the same period of the previous year.

A total of 54 economic criminals, including eight officials above county level, were sentenced to prison for a wide range of years.

More than 2.26 million worth of illicit money was confiscated, up 14 fold over money confiscated over the same period in the previous year.

(China Daily 12/27/2000)