Ex-energy official sentenced for bribery

Wei Pengyuan, a former senior energy official, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on Monday for accepting bribes of 211.7 million yuan ($31.4 million) and possessing a huge amount of property from an unidentified source, according to a court in Hebei province.

Wei, former deputy director of the National Energy Administration's Coal Department, was stripped of his political rights for life, and all of his personal belongings were confiscated, according to the Baoding Intermediate People's Court on Monday.

Judicial officers found that he had concealed illicit assets of more than 200 million yuan at his home. Sixteen cash-counting machines were sent from a Beijing bank to tally his illegal funds, and four of them broke down in the process.