Former Shandong official given life sentence for bribery

Zhang Xinqi, former deputy head of the Standing Committee of the Shandong Provincial People's Congress, was given a life sentence by a court in Jiangsu province on Monday for taking bribes worth more than 155 million yuan ($22 million).

The Nanjing Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu also stripped Zhang of his political rights and decreed all his personal property be confiscated. Additionally, his illicit gains will be turned over to the State treasury.

Zhang said he accepted the ruling and would not appeal to a higher court.

From 2001 to 2019, Zhang took advantage of his work positions, including mayor of Weifang and Qingdao, two major cities in the province, to seek benefits for individuals and departments in business operations, project launching, construction development and personnel promotion, according to the court's ruling, adding he received remuneration for these acts between 2006 and 2021.

The court said Zhang should be penalized for the crime of bribery, as the sum of money he received was large and his behavior also brought great loss to the country and people.

"But considering he provided evidence of some other influential cases and confessed to most of the bribes that the investigators hadn't known about during interrogation, with recovery of the illicit gains, we've decided to leniently punish him," the court said.

Zhang, 66, a native of Shangdong, started his career in 1974 and joined the Communist Party of China in 1977.

He was placed under investigation for alleged violations of discipline and law in February 2021. Nine months later, he was prosecuted by the Nanjing procuratorate.

In July, Zhang pleaded guilty when his case was heard by the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court.