Former Shanghai Party Chief Chen Liangyu is currently being held in jail pending the start of his prosecution, China's disciplinary watchdog confirmed in Beijing Thursday.

Gan Yisheng, spokesman for the Communist Party of China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said Chen's case has been handed over to prosecutors, adding that these were investigating the case and that a trial date would be fixed by the courts.

Chen Liangyu was expelled from the CPC and sacked from all government posts on July 26 as he stands accused of corruption. Two days earlier, he was also removed from his position as deputy to the 10th National People's Congress on July 24.

Chen, born in 1946, was the secretary of CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and member of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau when he was tarnished by accusations of corruption. 

According to an investigation by the CPC watchdog, Chen abused his power to use the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Labor and Social Security in securing vast loans for favored private enterprises from the Shanghai social security fund.

He also made it easier for private companies to buy into state-owned enterprises, thereby causing great harm to public assets.

Chen is also thought to have garnered illicit profits from project examination and approval, fund allocation, investment attraction, land planning and promoting inferior officials. Both Chen and his family received bribes worth staggering amounts of money.

(Xinhua News Agency August 2, 2007)