A court in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen sentenced a
former judge to life imprisonment on Friday for taking bribes of
more than 3.7 million yuan (US$507,000).
Pei Hongquan, former vice president of Shenzhen Municipal
Intermediate People's Court, were convicted of taking the amount of
bribes from an auction company and a real estate developer by
taking advantage of his post, according to the verdict handed down
by the intermediate people's court of Jiangmen city, Guangdong
Province.
In addition, he was not able to clarify the sources of part of
his personnel assets worth more than 6.8 million yuan, the court
ruling said.
Pei was one of the five senior judges of the Shenzhen court that
were detained in 2006 over bribery accusations.
The other four include court presidents Cai Xiaoling and Zhang
Tinghua, retired judge Liao Zhaohui, and a court official Li Huili,
said Bai Xinchao, procurator of the Shenzhen People's
Procuratorate.
Bai said that the five had taken advantage of their posts to
amass a huge amount of money through bribery over the past two or
three years. However, he refused to disclose the amount of money
involved as the investigation is ongoing.
(Xinhua News Agency January 5, 2008)