Scribe gets 16 years in mine accident coverup

A 50-year-old journalist has been sentenced to 16 years in jail for taking bribes to cover up a mine disaster in Hebei province in July 2008.

Li Junqi, former director of the Hebei bureau of Farmers' Daily, is believed to be the first of the 10 reporters involved in the scandal to receive criminal punishment.

Thirty-four miners and a rescuer died after a blast ripped through the Lijiawa mine in Yuxian county on July 14, 2008, three weeks before the start of the Beijing Olympics.