Crime & Justice

Ex-Chinese political advisor gets 9 years in prison for graft

Beijing, Mar 19 (EFE).- A former senior member of a political advisory committee of Beijing has got nine years in prison for taking bribes worth nearly 33 million yuan (nearly $5.2 million), state media reported Saturday.

Li Wei, a former vice president of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), will pay one million yuan in fine, said the official Xinhua news agency.

The Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin on Friday ordered the confiscation of illegal gains that would be turned over to the state treasury.

The CPPCC is China’s top political consultative body. It meets every year at the same time as plenary sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) that advises on economic and political issues.

The court found that Li took advantage of his various former positions in Beijing to benefit others in real-estate development and coal transactions between July 2001 and October 2019.

Xinhua said the court had granted Li a lenient sentence according to the law as he had confessed to his crimes, showed repentance, informed the investigators of serious crimes committed by others.

“All his illegal gains have been recovered,” said the news agency, citing a statement by the court.

After coming to power in 2012, CCP General-Secretary and China President Xi Jinping began an anti-corruption campaign.

More than a million officials have been found guilty of graft and punished for their conduct.

The drive has uncovered cases of corruption. But critics say that Xi could use the campaign to end the political careers of some of his rivals. EFE

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