Kuang Bingwen, former director of Anhui Provincial Bureau of Finance, has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment after being convicted of taking bribes.

Kuang will also be stripped of 200,000 yuan (25,000 US dollars) of personal assets, and his son, Kuang Zhongping, who was convicted of the same charges, was sentenced to five years in prison, according to a final ruling by the Higher People's Court of Anhui Province, east China.

Kuang senior, 70, formerly served as deputy director and then director of Anhui Provincial Bureau of Finance, director of Anhui Provincial Bureau of Local Taxation, and was a member of the standing committee of Anhui Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

The preliminary trial at the Intermediate People's Court of Huaibei City heard that Kuang senior took advantage of his official posts for personal gain and for the benefit of certain organizations from 1993 to 1997.

During his tenure, Kuang senior and his son, who used to be an employee of Anhui Provincial Trust and Investment Company, repeatedly took bribes, including cash sums of 1.28 million yuan (160,125 U.S. dollars) and 51,000 U.S. dollars.

Both were convicted and sentenced at the preliminary trial at the Intermediate People's Court of Huaibei in September last year.

However, Kuang Bingwen appealed his case to the Higher People's Court of Anhui Province.

The Higher Court deemed the offences to be serious, but acknowledged the lower court had shown leniency in consideration of Kuangs' cooperation with police and the fact that all illicit earnings were recovered.

The Higher Court upheld the verdict and sentence passed by the lower court.

Source: Xinhua