Chinese official sentenced to death for murder, graft

Chinese courts today sentenced to death a senior provincial official for murder and bribery while another official was jailed separately for graft.
Zhao Liping, a former senior political advisor in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was sentenced to death on charges of murder, taking bribes, possession of firearms by the provincial higher people's court of Shanxi Province.
The court rejected Zhao's appeal against the first trial verdict, issued by the Intermediate People's Court of Taiyuan city.
The court upheld the verdict in November 2016, which stripped Zhao of his political rights, confiscated personal property worth 2 million yuan (USD 2.90 lakhs) and sentenced him to death.

As the former vice chairman of the Inner Mongolia regional committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Zhao was found to have shot and killed a person, identified as Li, in Chifeng city, Inner Mongolia in March 2015, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
He also took advantage of his post to secure business contracts and official positions for associates and accepted bribes totaling 23.68 million yuan from 2008 to 2010, as the chief of the Public Security Department of Inner Mongolia, it said.

The Shanxi Provincial Higher People's Court said the first trial verdict was based on clear facts and sufficient evidence and passed Zhao's case to the Supreme People's Court for approved.

In another case, the Ningbo Municipal Intermediate Court sentenced He Jiacheng, former vice president ofthe Chinese Academy of Governance to nine years for taking bribes.
The court in Zhejiang Province also fined him 700,000 yuan and confiscated his illegal gains.
An investigation found that from 1995 to 2014, the defendant illegally accepted money worth 7.1 million yuan by taking advantage of his various posts to help individuals or companies in IPOs, real estate projects and other areas.
He was shown leniency as he pleaded guilty, expressed remorse, returned all of his illegal gains and disclosed information about the crimes of others.

Thousands of officials were punished for corruption in China in the anti-graft campaign initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping in the last four years.