A former general manager of Southern Metropolitan Daily, a major Chinese newspaper, was given an eight-year jail term Tuesday in Guangzhou, capital of southern China's Guangdong Province, four years shorter than his first sentence.

Yu Huafeng, former vice chief editor and general manager of the Guangzhou-based daily, was convicted of corruption and offering bribes by the Guangzhou City Intermediate People's Court after he had appealed the first verdict.

Also convicted on the same charges in the case was Li Minying, the daily's former editor-in-chief and an executive of the paper's parent Southern Daily Group, whose sentence was reduced from 11 years to five years in the retrial.

Yu was convicted in March by the Dongshan District Court of helping to embezzle 580,000 yuan (about 70,000 US dollars) and of corruption related to the distribution of bonuses at the paper in June 2001.

Li was also convicted of taking bribes totaling 970,000 yuan (about 117,000 US dollars) from 2000 to 2003 with a jail term of six years.