A senior Beijing official was yesterday sentenced to death for
murdering his mistress and taking bribes of nearly 600,000 yuan
($83,000).
Xu Zhiyuan, former vice-chairman of the Fangshan Committee of
the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director
of the Fangshan Party committee office, was found to have
maintained a "malfeasant relationship" with his female subordinate
surnamed Chen starting in February 1999, the Beijing No 1
Intermediate People's Court said.
Chen went missing on Jan 31, 2006, after receiving a phone call.
Her husband reported her disappearance to local police.
The husband went to the office where she worked to search for
clues and found a diary in her drawer, which exposed her six-year
love affair with Xu, the Beijing News reported.
In investigations, Xu admitted his relationship with Chen, but
initially claimed they had broken up six months earlier.
However, the diary contained more recent entries that expressed
Chen's anger at Xu, saying he was a liar and that she would not let
him live happily.
Investigators also found a text message on Xu's mobile phone
sent by Chen on the morning of January 31 saying he had hurt
her.
Xu later admitted he had hired his former driver Liu Xiaoming,
who also received the death sentence yesterday, to kill Chen.
"She not only sent messages threatening my daughter, she also
disturbed my family," the Beijing News report quoted Xu as
saying.
He asked Liu, who ran a paint plant, to kill Chen in return for
waiving a 100,000-yuan debt the driver owed him.
Liu said when Chen arrived at his plant, he choked her to death
and then burned her body, the report said.
In a separate case, Cui Baohong, the former head of Heshun
county in Shanxi province, was jailed for 20 years for graft
amounting to more than 9 million yuan, the Xinhua News Agency
reported yesterday.
Cui was convicted by an intermediate court on Monday of
extorting 2.45 million yuan, misappropriating 3.9 million yuan and
accepting 3 million yuan in bribes.
Heshun is one of China's most impoverished counties.
When the official was arrested, it was discovered the former
county head had four apartments in the provincial capital Taiyuan,
owned 18 cars and had 4.11 million yuan in cash.
In another case, Yu Guohua, vice-mayor of the city of Jilin, was
ousted from the Party and stripped of his post for "serious
violations of discipline", Xinhua reported yesterday.
"Yu Guohua used his position to receive and solicit a large
amount of bribes, illegally possessed firearms, held corrupt morals
and maintained a mistress," the report said.
Party disciplinarian officials have handed the case over for
prosecution through the legal system, it said.
Two weeks ago, Wang Zheng, former deputy head of Chongqing's
prosperous Yuzhong district was also sentenced to death for graft
with a two-year reprieve.
He was convicted of accepting more than 2.23 million yuan in
bribes.
(China Daily January 16, 2008)