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Bribe-hungry officials can no longer hide behind mistresses, says new judicial interpretation (2) |
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21:55, July 27, 2007 |
And a sum of 550,000 yuan was paid to Zhao''s mistress Wang Peiying by a contractor from the Longyuan Construction Group Co. Ltd. Brokered by Wang, Zhao helped the company beat 70 other bidders for the contract to build an airport terminal in 1998 when he was the deputy head of the Xiaoshan airport construction headquarters.
When the case was taken to the court in April this year, the prosecutors successfully linked Zhao with the money his son took but were held up by the case involving Wang.
The defendant denied being involved with the 550,000 yuan. He argued that he neither told Wang to ask for the money nor possessed it himself. And Wang and he were not legally classified as sharing joint interests.
The case had been pending for several months until the judicial interpretation was announced on July 8. Two days later Zhao was convicted of taking bribes, including the 550,000 yuan, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
"Based on the new judicial explanation, what Zhao committed was clearly bribery, which helped wrap up the case," said Sun Houxiang, chief procurator of the Huzhou city procuratorate, who prosecuted Zhao.
According to the document, an official taking advantage of his or her post to benefit a person or group and the latter offers a sum of money to his or her specially-related person, it constitutes bribery no matter whether or not the official touches the money or not.
"Concerned people" traditionally referred to genetic relatives or relatives through marriage but recent experience shows the prosecutors found extramarital lovers were more involved in the officials'' backdoor activities than family members, said Xiong Xuanguo, vice president of the SPC. "The laws had no clear definition on these cases and some corrupt officials did take advantage of this and escaped penalty," he said.
[1] [2] [3] [4]
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