Yang Zhongwan, a bureau-level officer who had been at large overseas for seven years, was tried by the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court yesterday for his alleged involvement in corruption and embezzlement.

Prosecutors charged Yang, 74, received 100,000 yuan (US$12,048) in bribes and embezzled 284,800 yuan from Shanghai Huafa Nuclear Power Co Ltd, a state-owned company. He committed the alleged crimes with Zhu Yi, the company's deputy general manager who is currently in prison.

The defendant denied the accusations, saying that he never took a penny from the state.

Yang was in charge of a local nuclear power administration office as a bureau-level officer since 1986. After he retired in 1991, he became general manager of Huafa, an affiliated company of the office and China Huaneng Group, a state-owned group operating mainly in electricity.

In January 1994, Yang, together with Zhu, lent Huafa capital to a Zhejiang Province company. The debtor was required to pay 100,000 yuan interest in June that year. Yang and Zhu then deposited the money in a private account and later transferred it to the account of Shanghai Ganghua Electric Power Co Ltd. This was privately owned by Yang and Zhu, prosecutors alleged.

Yang and Zhu established Ganghua in August 1995 in order to undertake an electrical plant construction project in Cambodia. When they began the project, Yang and Zhu allegedly shifted the relevant costs for the project, which should have been shouldered by Ganghua, to Huafa. The money totaled 195,900 yuan, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Yang and Zhu also embezzled 88,800 yuan in deposit interest of Huafa to pay rent for Ganghua in September 1995.

When Yang was abroad on a business trip in 1997, he learned Zhu was captured by police and lived anonymously until he was arrested in May this year.

Yesterday, the defendant tried to shift all the onus onto Zhu.

When asked about sensitive questions by the prosecutors, he used the excuse of being unable to remember.

Source: Shanghai Daily