China indicts four senior officials for graft

BEIJING - Chinese prosecutors have filed corruption indictments against Zhang Lijun, former vice minister of environmental protection, and three provincial-level officials.

They are Sui Fengfu, former deputy director of the Heilongjiang Provincial People's Congress Standing Committee, Liang Bin, former head of the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Hebei Provincial Committee, and Lu Wucheng, former deputy director of the Gansu Provincial People's Congress Standing Committee, according to a statement issued by the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) on Friday.

All four are charged with accepting bribes.

Prosecutors in the four cases accused the suspects of taking advantage of their posts to seek benefits for others and accepting "huge amounts" in bribes.

Zhang's case was investigated by SPP prosecutors and later transferred to a lower-level procuratorate in Beijing to launch the indictment.

The SPP designated the provincial procuratorate in Liaoning to investigate the cases of Sui and Liang and the provincial procuratorate of Shaanxi for Lu's case, according to the statement.

The three cases were later transferred to city-level procuratorates for indictments.

The defendants have been informed of their litigation rights and questioned by the prosecutors, who have heard representations from the defendants' lawyers in each case.