HONG KONG, May 8 (Reuters) – A former chairman of China Eastern Airlines Group has been indicted on bribery charges, China’s top prosecutor said on Friday, the latest in a string of high-profile anti-graft actions as Beijing steps up a campaign against corruption.
The news comes a day after the official Xinhua news agency spotlighted the scale of the effort, with former defence ministers Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu sentenced to death on graft charges, although with a two-year reprieve.
Liu Shaoyong, the former airline official, is accused of “abusing multiple official posts … to secure benefits for others and accept bribes involving money and valuables”, Xinhua said.
The charges also cover Liu’s time as the airline chairman, it added.
Liu was expelled from China’s Communist Party in January. Reuters was not able to contact Liu for comment.
The anti-graft campaign, launched since President Xi Jinping took over as China’s leader in 2012, targets both “tigers and flies” or senior officials and lower-level cadres.
It has increasingly focused on the misuse of public funds, bank credit, state-owned enterprise assets, infrastructure spending, and local-government resources.
On Thursday, China’s top antigraft watchdog said Hou Weidong, former member of the Communist Party Committee and vice president of the Bank of Communications, had been expelled from the ruling party for “serious violations of discipline and law”.
Hou illegally accepted gifts, money and consumption cards, borrowed large sums from management and service recipients, and had others pay his expenses in a case being reviewed by the public prosecutor, it added.
The crackdown also targeted two local government officials this week.
Jin Zhizhen, a former vice chairman of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regional committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference was expelled from the Party and removed from public office for “serious violations of discipline and law,” Xinhua said.
Zhou Xi’an, a former vice chairman of the Anhui provincial committee of the same Conference, was handed a suspended death sentence with a two-year reprieve, one of China’s harshest graft penalties.
He illegally accepted money and valuables worth more than 134 million yuan ($20 million), state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday.
($1=6.8043 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Farah Master and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
