Authorities of Fuxin City in Liaoning Province have decided to investigate an official even though police believe claims of sex and drug abuse against him are false.

Yu Yang, deputy director of the Communist Party of China Fuxin Committee's department of political and legal affairs, was described online as a drug addict who forced women to attend his sex-orgy parties, The Beijing News reported yesterday.

However, Fuxin police said the accusation posted online by local entrepreneur Shangguan Hongxiang is false. They suspect him of defamation.

A post published several weeks ago on a popular online forum, Tianyan.cn, aired voice recordings of an alleged victim, Li Jing, saying Yu had forced women to take drugs and have sex with him and Han Jingyan, the head of Fuxin's traffic police.

On the recording, Li said she was forced into "sex parties" by Yu and Han four times between March and May.

Li, a college graduate and a former Shangguan employee, said in the recording that she was fed with drugs mouth to mouth and coerced into group sex during the parties.

Shangguan said in the online post that Yu held a party with more than 20 participants at Shangguan's factory house on June 5. He said Yu had held similar activities at Shangguan's hotel or factory houses several times previously.

However, according to police investigation, Li confessed that she was beaten by Shangguan on May 25 in a hotel and forced to fabricate charges against Yu.

Wang Dan, another alleged victim, told police she was threatened by Shangguan in August to testify against Yu.

A third alleged victim refused to answer police questions.

Shangguan admitted all three alleged victims were his former employees, and that Li and Wang had been his mistresses.

Despite these findings by police, the Fuxin Party chief decided to continue to probe the case amid public doubts that the police would seriously investigate their powerful supervisor Yu.

Shangguan, an ex-convict but now a deputy of a district people's congress in Fuxin, is in the latter stages of liver cancer. He is reported to have old grievances with Yu over business disputes.