Zhang Shaocang, former head of a state-owned energy firm in east
China's Anhui Province, has been sentenced to life in
prison for taking bribes valued at nearly 10 million yuan (US$1.3
million), a spokesman with the court said on Sunday.
The Intermediate People's Court in Fuyang has also deprived
Zhang, former general manager of Anhui Province Energy Group Co Ltd
and chief of the company committee of the Communist Party of China
(CPC), of his political rights for life and ruled all his personal
properties would be confiscated.
Court investigators found Zhang, 55, accepted 7 million yuan
(US$900,000) of undeserved money from a local company in 1992, when
he was a trade official at the then Anhui provincial planning
committee, known today as the provincial reform and development
committee.
He took another 2.78 million yuan worth of bribes between 1989
and 2006, when he worked as director in charge of the provincial
economic information center, general manager of Anhui Province
Energy Investment Co. Ltd, general manager of Anhui Province Energy
Group Co Ltd and board chairman of Wanneng Energy Co Ltd.
His wife and son were also involved in his corruption case, the
court said without elaborating.
The court said Zhang had promoted several bribers, given jobs to
their relations, issued import permits to some companies or signed
warranties to help them get loans.
He was also accused of plagiarism because the four-page "letter
of apology" he read during his corruption trial at a Fuyang court
in July was strikingly similar to that of Zhu Fuzhong, a disgraced
former Party chief of Tongan village in southwestern Sichuan
province, the Procuratorial Daily reported last week.
(Xinhua News Agency September 9, 2007)