A former leading government official of South China's Guangdong Province will appear in court again today on charges of accepting HK$1.27 million (US$163,800) in bribes, a court spokesman said yesterday.

The Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court first opened a trial against Feng Keye, former head of the Guangdong Economical and Technological Co-operation Office (GETCO), on Monday.

The court was told that he had accepted bribes from two shareholders of a local steel company from 1995 to 1997.

Feng did not deny the charges at Monday's hearing and asked for a comparatively light term because of his bad health, Li Zhongyuan, spokesman of the court told China Daily yesterday.

"Despite his worsening health condition, Feng will be punished severely if he is found guilty," Li said.

Feng, 63, said in court that most of the money he received in bribes has been used in repaying his eldest son's debts over the last few years.

He was quoted by the court as saying that he had asked his family to raise back the money by selling his house.

Feng became friends with two major shareholders from the Heyuan Yuannan Steel Corp when he became former vice-mayor of Heyuan of Guangdong in 1988.

In 1995, when he was serving as head of the GETCO, Feng is said to have used public money worth about 40 million yuan (US$5 million) to buy parts of the two shareholders' stocks due to the steel company's capital crisis.

In return, the two shareholders, Chen Mingsheng and Liu Xiangeng, gave Feng HK$1.27 million from 1995 to 1997, the court was told.

The GETCO's disciplinary department began investigating the case at the end of 2004 when Feng retired.

In May this year, Feng was detained by local police and was said to have admitted the crime.

(China Daily December 28, 2005)