A former Chinese justice minister and a senior police official were today sentenced to life in prison for corruption. A court in the northeastern province of Jilin announced that he was initially sentenced to death, but his sentence was changed to detention for the rest of his life.
Fu Zhenghua, 67, is also a former deputy minister of public security and started his career as a simple investigator in Beijing. He is one of the most important political figures to fall out of favor in the last five years.
The former minister held the post from March 2018 to April 2020, before assuming the coordinating role of the Legal and Social Affairs Committee of the Chinese Congress, known as the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
The Changchun People’s Court announced that Fu Zhenghua was “convicted of taking bribes” of 117 million yuan – about $16.7 million – and “violated the law for his personal interests and the interests of his relatives”.
According to the court, their bribes were “enormous” and “their crimes caused great losses to the public interest of the state and the people.” The former minister was sentenced to death, but escaped a final sentence for collaborating with investigators in other cases.
The suspension of the death penalty is two years. According to the same source, after this period the sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment “without the possibility of a reduction in sentence”.
His sentence comes just before the Chinese Communist Party congress in mid-October, when President Xi Jinping hopes to win a third term as head of the political organization.
*with information from AFP
source: Noticias
