A provincial court has upheld a sentence of 10 years in prison
for a top transport official in east China's Anhui Province for taking bribes and failing
to account for his assets.
Anhui Provincial Higher People's Court also ordered the seizure
of 150,000 yuan (US$18,900) of assets from Wang Xingyao, 56, former
director of the Anhui Transport Department.
The court found Wang guilty of accepting bribes totaling 135,300
yuan from a construction company in southern Guangdong Province and
he had more than 830,000 yuan in assets for which he could not
account.
Wang was arrested in December 2004 on corruption charges. He was
sentenced to 10 years in imprisonment by the Intermediate People's
Court of Anhui's Bengbu City at the initial trial held on July 11
this year. Wang lodged an appeal after the ruling was
announced.
China has stepped up efforts to punish corruption in the
transport sector recently.
Earlier this year, Zhang Quan, former deputy director of the
transport department in Hebei Province, was sentenced to 14 years
in prison for taking over two million yuan in bribes. The case
involved 26 other local officials and a total of 40 million
yuan.
In mid-December last year, another transport official Lu Wanli
in southwest China's Guizhou Province was executed on charges of
taking millions of dollars in bribes.
(Xinhua News Agency December 30, 2006)