Procurator vows to keep battling corruption
( 2001-12-26 00:31) (1)
China's top procurator Han Zhubin vowed Tuesday that the investigation and prevention of corruption and dereliction of duty will remain a primary task of the nation's prosecutors in 2002.
Han said the past year was marked by major reforms aimed at catching and convicting corrupt officials.
More than 43,000 cases of graft and dereliction were probed in the first 11 months of this year, efforts that led to the recovery of 3.4 billion yuan (US$414 million) in ill-gotten gains.
Nearly 3,000 officials above the county level were investigated between January and November, and nearly 1,300 cases of graft probed involving more than 1 million yuan (US$120,000) each during the same period.
Among those convicted officials was Li Jizhou, former vice-minister of public security. Li was sentenced to death with a two-year suspension for accepting bribery and being derelict.
Han said prosecutors also stressed a crackdown on supporters of gangs, delivering ``a destructive blow to the gangs.''
One of the highest-profile cases of this type involved the former mayor and deputy mayor of Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province. Mu Suixin and Ma Xiangdong were convicted of corruption and embezzlement and were found to have ties to local gangs.
Ma, the deputy mayor, was executed earlier this month. Mu was sentenced to death with a two-year suspension.
As a preventative measure, the Supreme People's Procuratorate joined with eight economic sectors this year believed to suffer high incidences of corruption and dereliction, Han said.
The eight were sectors involving finance, securities, State-owned enterprises, customs, construction, judicial, industrial and commerce and medicine.
Also, 29 provincial procuratorates and crime-prevention networks have been set up across nine provinces.
(China Daily by Shao Zongwei)
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