Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
IP addresses are NOT logged in this forum so there's no point asking. Please note that this forum is full of homophobes, racists, lunatics, schizophrenics & absolute nut jobs with a smattering of geniuses, Chinese chauvinists, Moderate Muslims and last but not least a couple of "know-it-alls" constantly sprouting their dubious wisdom. If you believe that content generated by unsavory characters might cause you offense PLEASE LEAVE NOW! Sammyboy Admin and Staff are not responsible for your hurt feelings should you choose to read any of the content here. The OTHER forum is HERE so please stop asking.
A white-haired Zhou Yongkang admits his guilt in court and says that he will not appeal. Photo: CCTV
China’s former security tsar Zhou Yongkang has been sentenced to life imprisonment by Tianjin No.1 Intermediate People’s Court.
He was also stripped of all political rights for life and all his personal assets were confiscated, Xinhua reported on Thursday.
State television showed pictures of a white-haired Zhou admitting his guilt in court and saying that he would not appeal.
Zhou, the most senior Chinese official to stand trial on graft charges in decades, was formally charged in April with taking bribes, abuse of power and intentionally leaking state secrets.
On the charge of taking bribes, Zhou was sentenced to life imprisonment, had his political rights withdrawn for life and his personal assets confiscated.
For abuse of power, he received seven years’ imprisonment, and for leaking state secrets he received four years’ imprisonment.
The Tianjin court started a closed-door trial on May 22. The trial was not open to the public because “some evidence of his crimes involved state secrets”, the report said.
The court ruled that Zhou and his family had taken bribes totaling 129.7 million yuan (HK$164 million) from Zhou’s close allies.
It said that Zhou accepted bribes worth 731,100 yuan from Jiang Jiemin, the former head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and former chairman of the state-run China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), where Zhou was a top official for 10 years.
His son Zhou Bin and wife Jia Xiaoye received 129 million yuan from others including Sichuan businessman Wu Bing, former Luliang mayor Ding Xuefeng, CNPC chief accountant Wen Qingshan and Zhou Hao, the former party chief of a subsidiary of CNPC.
The court said Zhou had abused his power by asking Jiang and former Sichuan deputy party chief Li Chuncheng to direct more than 2.13 billion yuan of illegal gains to his son and other businessmen, causing a loss of 1.48 billion yuan to the Chinese economy.
Zhou had also given six classified documents, of which five were top secret, to Cao Yongzheng, who is a “qigong master” according to mainland media.
The court said that while Zhou had accepted a “huge” amount of bribes, he had confessed his crimes and pleaded guilty. Most of the bribes had been taken by his relatives and he had asked them to hand back the money, it noted, adding that all the money had been confiscated.
Therefore, said the court, he had been given a “lenient” punishment.
The maximum punishment for bribery is death; the state-secret and abuse of power charges each carry up to seven years in jail.
The authorities announced in July last year that Zhou was being investigated on suspicion of abuse of power and corruption.
Dozens of officials with connections to Zhou have been detained on suspicion of graft in the past two years. Many are linked to Zhou’s former power bases in the oil industry, domestic security and in Sichuan province. Both of Zhou’s sons have been detained by investigators.
Re: China ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang sentenced to life in prison, will not appea
Complex web unravels as trial of China's disgraced security tsar follows the money
Zhou Yongkang's links to political, business and energy figures are laid bare
Disgraced former security tsar Zhou Yongkang is led away from court. Photo: Reuters
Zhou Yongkang's family members and close associates were named in the court's verdict as key witnesses to his criminal charges, exposing Zhou's connections to the political, business and energy sectors.
Sichuan businessman Wu Bing was called as a witness to testify in court on Zhou's bribery charge, while Zhou's eldest son Zhou Bin and his wife Jia Xiaoye testified in a video played during the trial as evidence, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
Wu, 52, was the chairman of the Zhongxu Investment Corporation based in Chengdu , Sichuan. Under the banner of Zhongxu, his business empire covered a wide range of industries including power station construction, real estate development and entertainment.
Wu reportedly took care of money laundering for Zhou Yongkang and his son.
The court ruled that Zhou had taken bribes worth 731,100 yuan (HK$923,000) from his close ally Jiang Jiemin in return for "seeking profits" for Wu Bing, Ding Xuefeng, Wen Qingshan, Zhou Hao and Jiang.
Wu, Ding, Wen and Zhou Hao also offered bribes worth 129 million yuan to Zhou's eldest son and wife, the court said.
Jiang, 59, former head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, is a prominent protégé of Zhou and a key member of the so-called Petroleum Gang, a Communist Party faction named by Xinhua in January.
He is also the former chairman of the state-run China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), a power base for Zhou, who was a top official there for 10 years. Jiang stood trial for corruption and abuse of power in April.
Ding, 52, is the former mayor of Luliang city in coal-rich Shanxi province. He was detained in December 2013, implicated in a corruption investigation against the former deputy national police chief Li Dongsheng , who is also closely linked to Zhou.
Li had reportedly helped to advance Ding's political career.
Wen, 57, was the chief accountant at CNPC and a member of its party committee. He was detained in December 2013, after a series of senior executives at CNPC, including Jiang, were investigated on suspicion of corruption.
Zhou Hao, 52, is a former party secretary of the CNPC subsidiary Liaohe Oilfield. He was taken away last April.
The court said Zhou had abused his power by asking Jiang and the former Sichuan deputy party chief Li Chuncheng to direct illegal gains worth more than 2.13 billion yuan to his family members and contacts. These included his eldest son, his nephew Zhou Feng , his youngest brother Zhou Yuanqing, the Sichuan-based businesswoman He Yan and Cao Yongzheng.
This caused a loss of 1.48 billion yuan to the economy.
Li, 58, was the first provincial level official to fall under President Xi Jinping's anti-graft campaign. The authorities began investigating him for suspected graft in December 2012.
He was vice-mayor of Chengdu in 1998 and rose up the party ranks when Zhou was Sichuan's party chief from 1999 to 2002.
Zhou Feng is the chairman of Beijing Honghan Corporation. The company is a major shareholder in another Beijing-based investment company, which partnered with a Sichuan subsidiary of CNPC in 2007 to set up Hongfeng Potash. Hongfeng Potash received mining rights from Sichuan land and resources officials to develop minerals in a vast area until November 2015, mainland media Caixin reported. Sichuan is another major power base of Zhou's.
Zhou Yuanqing is Zhou Yongkang's youngest brother and Zhou Feng's father. He worked as the deputy chief of a district land and resources bureau in Wuxi, Jiangsu . He was the bridge to connect many lower-level officials to Zhou Yongkang, reported Caixin.
Cao, 56, was identified by Caixin as a mystic. Zhou Yongkang once said Cao was the person he trusted the most. Cao was also closely linked to Li. The court said Zhou had given Cao six classified documents, of which five were top secret.
Re: China ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang sentenced to life in prison, will not appea
China's disgraced security tsar Zhou Yongkang jailed for life over graft
Party broke long-held taboo by prosecuting a member of its inner circle, analysts say, but by escaping death Zhou Yongkang got off lightly
Zhou Yongkang at his sentencing in a clip shown on state television. Photo: SCMP Pictures
The mainland's former security tsar Zhou Yongkang was yesterday sentenced to life in jail - the most senior official to receive such a heavy sentence since the Cultural Revolution, although analysts say he was treated relatively favourably.
The Tianjin No. 1 Intermediate People's Court tried Zhou in secret last month on charges of taking bribes, abuse of power and intentionally leaking state secrets, Xinhua reported. He was also stripped of his political rights for life and his personal assets confiscated, it said.
Analysts said the Communist Party had broken a long-held taboo against prosecuting members of its inner circle and that by avoiding the death sentence, Zhou got off lightly.
Central China Television showed a short clip of the trial on its evening newscast, in which a white-haired Zhou is seen standing and listening to the court's guilty verdict. A judge asked: "Have you heard this clearly?" Without any visible emotion, Zhou replied: "I've heard clearly."
He said he accepted the verdict and would not appeal. He also said his crimes had harmed the party and admitted to his guilt.
Zhou, 72, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee - the highest decision-making body in the country - was formally charged in April. The trial took place on May 22. It was not open to the public because his case involved the disclosure of state secrets, Xinhua said.
On the charge of taking bribes, Zhou was sentenced to life imprisonment, had his political rights withdrawn and assets confiscated.
For abuse of power, he was jailed for seven years, and for leaking state secrets he was given four years behind bars.
The court ruled that Zhou and his family took 129.77 million yuan (HK$164 million) in bribes from his close allies.
Jiang Jiemin , the former head of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and former chairman of the state-run China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), where Zhou was a top official for 10 years, gave him 731,000 yuan, the court found.
The court said Zhou had abused his power by asking Jiang and former Sichuan deputy party chief Li Chuncheng to direct more than 2.13 billion yuan of illegal gains to his son and other businessmen, causing a loss of 1.48 billion yuan to the economy.
Zhou also gave six classified documents, five of which were top secret, to Cao Yongzheng, whom mainland media have described as a "qigong master". Most of the bribes were taken by his relatives and he had asked them to hand back the money, the court said, adding all the money had been confiscated.
A commentary by People's Daily said the verdict showed no one could stand above the law, and opposition to corruption had become a national consensus.
Political analysts said although Zhou was sentenced to life in jail, and the party had broken a previous unspoken rule that former members of the Politburo's elite Standing Committee would not be prosecuted, he was still let off relatively lightly, given what the court said he did.
Political commentator Li Weidong said Zhou's escape of the death sentence, unlike some lower officials who were convicted of taking much less in bribes, showed he was still treated leniently.
They said his trial arrived suddenly without publicity, compared with the open trial of his ally, former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai in 2013, because the party did not want to further tarnish its image.
Chen Daoyin, a political scientist at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said the anti-corruption drive and trial of Bo had built up a "circus effect", which the party was now keen to cool.
Political commentator Ching Cheong said the verdict avoided mentioning the political reason for Zhou's prosecution, which was that he posed a threat to President Xi Jinping.
The Supreme People's Court in March accused Zhou and Bo of "engaging in political activities [not approved by the party]".
Ching said the party wanted to play down Zhou's sentencing because it wanted to uphold its legitimacy among ordinary Chinese.
"It wants to safeguard the security of the regime," he said.
A lawyer with knowledge of the cases of Zhou and his family, who declined to be named, said the sentencing should have been open to the public.
Gu Yongzhong, one of Zhou's lawyers, said his client's right to defend himself was adequately protected.
Additional reporting by Keira Lu Huang
__________________________________
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
CHARGE:
Taking bribes
SENTENCE:
Life imprisonment, political rights withdrawn for life, personal assets confiscated
Zhou Yongkang listens as his sentence is read. Photo: Reuters
The lighter-than-expected sentence handed to former security tsar Zhou Yongkang after a closed-door trial was a well-calculated political decision by Beijing that likely followed "Chinese-style plea bargains" under the table, observers say.
Two years into his graft probe, Zhou's fate was finally decided on Thursday when a court in Tianjin jailed him for life on charges of taking 731,000 yuan (HK$920,000) in bribes, leaking six classified documents to a mainland "qigong master", and abusing his power.
Professor Huang Jing, from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, said Beijing wanted to keep Zhou alive as their "tainted witness" to deter corrupt officials and "political opponents" from subverting Xi Jinping's sweeping anti-graft campaign.
"Zhou is a walking encyclopedia [of other top officials]," Huang said. "If he was executed, what he knows would be taken to the grave."
Nor did Beijing want Zhou to walk away from his widely-known crimes, said Steve Tsang, dean of the University of Nottingham School of Contemporary Chinese Studies.
"A life sentence is therefore exactly what one should expect," Tsang said.
"The real issue is not what he was guilty of, but what the Communist Party leadership thought he should be charged with and convicted of in order to fit the pre-determined sentence."
Xiaoyu Pu, a Chinese politics expert at the University of Nevada, said plea bargains might have occurred, out of sight, along the lines of "Zhou agrees to plead guilty and confess publicly in return for more severe charges being dropped," he said.
It was even speculated that Zhou might stand trial for subversion - which could lead to the death sentence - after the annual work report released by the Supreme People's Court in late March said explicitly that Zhou had "undermined the party's solidarity and engaged in political activities [not approved by the authorities]".
The report made the same claim against Bo Xilai , the former Chongqing party chief and close associate of Zhou, who was tried in 2013. Bo was sentenced to life in jail in 2013.
But neither Zhou's indictment nor the verdict made any mention of Bo, or their unapproved "political activities".
It also surprised many that Beijing chose a closed-door trial for Zhou instead of the live-blogged showcase prosecution of Bo two years ago. Xi had repeatedly vowed to promote greater transparency of China's legal system following the party's fourth plenum last year.
Zhang Qingsong, a prominent criminal lawyer who defended executed business tycoon Liu Han , said he was caught off-guard by the abrupt announcement about Zhou.
"From the perspective of warning against corruption and displaying the significance of rule of law, if the trial of the other two charges were open to the public, it would have had a greater social and political impact," the criminal lawyer said.
Zhou's trial was held on May 22, but was kept secret for another 20 days before state media abruptly announced the verdict.
"Xi's 'plan A' was most likely a public trial to showcase his commitment to hunting down 'tigers' [corrupt officials] and his notion of rule by law," Tsang said.
But Xi probably did not want to risk holding a public trial if he was not sufficiently in control and confident Zhou would stick to the script, he said. "Lessons were learned from the Bo trial."
Pu agreed that the political stakes of holding an open trial for Zhou were much higher than Bo's case, as it involved more "national secrets" and information about higher-ranking political elites.
"The court tricked the public," said a lawyer with knowledge of the cases involving Zhou and his family, but who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"They did not tell the public in advance in any form, as far as I know, but they could argue that they did not deny anyone access to the court."
