Ding Xinfa, former provincial procurator-general of east China's Jiangxi Province, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for bribery and embezzlement on Monday.

The Intermediate People's Court of Hangzhou, capital city of east China's Zhejiang Province, handed down the verdict in the first instance. Ding's personal assets worth of 900,000 yuan (around 111,250 US dollars) were confiscated.

According to the court verdict, from 1993 to 2003, Ding took advantage of his posts as director of the provincial bureau of public security and later procurator-general in Jiangxi, to seek personal gain from six people who gave him and his family members bribes of more than 2.75 million yuan (around 340,000 US dollars). Back in 1998, when he was director of the provincial bureau of public security, Ding embezzled 1.1 million yuan (around 137,500 US dollars) of public funds for others to run profit-making businesses.

All the illicit money and bribes accepted by Ding had been recovered, the court said.

The court verdict said Ding Xinfa had committed the crime of accepting bribes. In his civil servant capacity, Ding accepted bribes and misused his power to seek illicit gain for those who offered the bribes. The amount of bribes he took was particularly large.

However, in view of the fact that Ding had confessed to most of his crimes, repented of them, and been active in returning bribes, he was given a lenient punishment, court verdict said.

Source: Xinhua