Xiao Zuoxin, former mayor of Fuyang City, east China's Anhui Province, and his wife Zhou Jimei were sentenced to life imprisonment and death with a two-year probation period, respectively, Wednesday for various crimes.
The ruling was handed down Wednesday by the Intermediate People's Court of Hefei, capital city of Anhui.
Court investigations found that when he was at the leading posts of the Party committee of Fuyang Prefecture, the Party committee and the government of Fuyang City, Xiao abused his power and he and his wife jointly accepted bribes exceeding 1.1 million yuan and HK$50,000 in cash, and a gold bracelet.
Xiao also accepted 14,879.5 yuan and US$2,000 and Zhou accepted 4,133.1 yuan in bribes separately.
When Zhou was a leading official with the social security bureau of Fuyang City, she took advantage of her position and embezzled more than 4.3 million yuan from the sales of public housing. She also disposed of the books and illegally speculated the land use rights by violating regulations regarding land administration, acquiring more than one million yuan in profits.
According to Wednesday's 37-page court verdict, Xiao Zuoxin was found guilty of accepting bribes and being unable to verify the source of his property. Besides life imprisonment, Xiao is to be deprived of his political rights and be stripped of all his personal wealth.
Xiao's wife Zhou Jimei was found guilty of four crimes: embezzlement, accepting bribes, illegally trading in land use rights, and being unable to identify the source of her property. She was fined 103,995 yuan, deprived of her political rights and also stripped of all her personal belongings, in addition to being given a death sentence with a two-year probation period.
The couple's illegal belongings of over 19 million yuan, US$133,880 and HK$16,243 should be retrieved, said the verdict.
(Xinhua 11/29/2000)
