Vice mayor of in east China faces bribery charges

Li Jianxin, vice mayor of Jiangyin City, east China's Jiangsu Province, has been put under house arrest after being accused of taking bribes, according to local officials.

The Municipal People's Congress of Wuxi City, which exercises jurisdiction over Jiangyin City, approved Li's house arrest, a deputy of the congress said on Saturday.

The city's CPC (Communist Party of China) Commission for Discipline Inspection and the procuratorate of Wuxi confirmed they are investigating Li, but declined to elaborate.

Li, 51, became Jiangyin's vice mayor in March 1997 and has been in charge of the city's urban construction and transportation since 2003.

Shen Yang, former deputy director of the city's construction project trade center, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last May after being found guilty of taking bribes worth a million yuan.

According to the local court, Shen confessed that some other government officials in Jiangyin had also taken bribes, but it has not been confirmed if Li was identified as one of them.

As one of China's most developed county-level cities, Jiangyin has been a shining star of economic development in Jiangsu with an annual economic growth rate of more than 31 percent from 2001 to 2005.

Source: Xinhua