BEIJING – One of China’s former intelligence chiefs has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of accepting 109 million yuan (US$15.8 million) in bribes, and crimes relating to insider trading and forced share transfers.
Ma Jian, the former deputy head of China’s Ministry of State Security, was tried on Thursday at Dalian Intermediate Court in northeast China, where he was also fined 50.5 million yuan. Ma had been put under investigation in 2015 and expelled from the Communist Party one year later.
The court ordered the confiscation of all of Ma’s personal property and demanded the return of his ill-gotten gains, the South China Monitoring Post reported.
He pleaded guilty and would not appeal, a court in the north-eastern Liaoning province said.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/world/china-jails-ex-security-chief-for-corruption-098/
As deputy minister of the powerful state security ministry, a position to which he was appointed in 2006, Ma was in charge of China’s counter-espionage operations, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
The crimes for which he was convicted, however, spanned a 15-year period between 1999 and 2014, the court heard.
In that time, Ma accepted bribes totalling 109 million yuan in return for using his influence to benefit various associates, including the now fugitive Chinese tycoon Guo Wengui, the chairman of Beijing Zenith Holdings Co.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/world/china-punished-more-than-71000-for-hedonism-corruption-in-2017/
Many high-ranking officials have been toppled as part of President Xi Jinping’s vast anti-corruption drive.
More than one million officials have been punished in the anti-corruption drive started by President Xi when he took power in 2012, the government says.
The campaign has been described by some as a massive internal purge of opponents, on a scale not seen since the days of Mao Zedong, in whose Cultural Revolution many top officials were purged.
