China’s former Ministry of Public Security Zhou Yongkang has been jailed for life after being found guilty of bribery, abuse of power and “intentionally disclosing national secrets”, Xinhua news agency reports.
Zhou Yongkang – the most senior politician to face corruption charges under Communist rule.
Until his retirement in 2012, Zhou Yongkang was one of China’s most powerful men.
Zhou Yongkang was put under investigation one year later as part of President Xi Jinping’s major anti-corruption campaign.
State TV showed a clip of Zhou Yongkang, 72, pleading guilty at a closed-door trial in the northern city of Tianjin. When responding to the judge, he said he would not launch an appeal.
Zhou Yongkang said: “I’ve realized the harm I’ve caused to the party and the people. I plead guilty and I regret my crimes.”
He was tried behind closed doors on May 22 because the case involved state secrets, Xinhua agency reports. There was no public announcement until the conviction was reported on June 11.
In a breakdown of the ruling, Xinhua reports that Zhou Yongkang received a life sentence for accepting bribes worth 130 million yuan ($21.3 million), seven years for abuse of power and four years for “deliberately releasing state secrets”.
All political rights have been stripped and his property confiscated, the news agency added.
Zhou Yongkang was charged in April, nine months after a formal investigation was announced.
He has since been expelled from the Communist Party.
Zhou Yongkang was once head of the Ministry of Public Security, as well as a member of China’s top decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee.
It is the first time such a senior Chinese figure has been convicted of corruption since the Communist Party came to power in 1949.
President Xi Jinping vowed to end endemic corruption when he came to power in 2012.
Since then, a number of Zhou Yongkang’s former associates from his time working in the oil industry and as Communist Party chief in Sichuan province have been investigated or prosecuted as part of Xi Jinping’s corruption crackdown.
The Xinhua report did not refer to Bo Xilai, a former protégé of Zhou Yongkang’s and former Chongqing Communist Party chief, who is currently in prison on charges linked to his wife’s murder of a British businessman.
Zhou Yongkang, who oversaw China’s security apparatus and law enforcement institutions, has been charged with bribery, abuse of power and the intentional disclosure of state secrets, state media report.
The former security chief was, until his retirement in 2012, one of China’s most powerful men.
Zhou Yongkang headed the Ministry of Public Security and was a member of China’s top decision-making body.
Once Xi Jinping took over as president in 2013, however, Zhou Yongkang was put under investigation.
A formal probe was announced in July 2014, after months of rumors, and he has since been expelled from the Communist Party.
Zhou Yongkang’s case had been sent to a court in Tianjin, a northern port city, Xinhua news agency reported.
The head of China’s top court said last month he would have an “open trial”, though no date has been announced.
In a brief statement, China’s top prosecution body said that the allegations against Zhou Yongkang were “extraordinarily severe”.
“The defendant Zhou Yongkang… took advantage of his posts to seek gains for others and illegally took huge property and assets from others, abused his power, causing huge losses to public property and the interests of the state and the people,” the statement said.
Zhou Yongkang, who is in his 70s, is the most senior official to be targeted in decades.
He was previously one of nine members of China’s highest organ, the Politburo Standing Committee. It has since shrunk to seven members.
Zhou Yongkang has not been seen in public since late 2013, when rumors of a probe first emerged.
A number of his former associates from his time both in the oil industry and as Communist Party chief in Sichuan province are already being investigated or prosecuted as part of Xi Jinping’s corruption crackdown.
Zhou Yongkang’s former protégé, former Chongqing Communist Party chief and high-flyer Bo Xilai, is currently in prison on charges linked to his wife’s murder of a British businessman.
Analysts say the investigation into Zhou Yongkang allows Xi Jinping – who took office as president in March 2013 – to consolidate his power base, remove people opposed to his reforms and improve the image of the Communist Party.
Chinese mining tycoon Liu Han has been executed after being sentenced to death in May 2014 for “leading mafia-style crime and murder”, state media say.
Liu Han’s younger brother, Liu Wei and three other associates were also executed, Xinhua said, after China’s top court signed off on the move.
The former chairman of Hanlong Group is believed to have had links to former security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is currently being investigated.
The Hanlong Group is a major private conglomerate based in Sichuan province, involved in multiple industries including mining, telecommunications and chemicals.
As head of the company, Liu Han was both rich and very influential.
Xinhua said the company, which had been “harbored and indulged by government officials, had illegally monopolized the gaming business in Guanghan City in Sichuan province, tyrannized local people and seriously harmed the local economic and social order”.
In recent months, several top officials from Sichuan province have come under scrutiny.
Sichuan was a power base of Zhou Yongkang, China’s former domestic security chief who is now the subject of a corruption probe.
Zhou Yongkang was the party secretary in Sichuan before becoming head of China’s public security ministry in 2003.
He was arrested in December 2014, the latest and by far the most senior figure to be handed over to prosecutors as part of President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption.
Official reports do not specifically link Liu Han’s case with Zhou Yongkang.
Liu Han was an associate of Zhou Bin, Zhou Yongkang’s son, the South China Morning Post reported.
China’s ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang has been arrested and expelled from the Communist Party, state media reported.
Zhou Yongkang is the most senior Chinese official to be investigated for corruption.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate, China’s top prosecuting body, said it had opened a formal probe against him.
Before he retired two years ago, Zhou Yongkang was the head of China’s vast internal security apparatus.
Many of his former associates and relatives also face corruption probes.
Since coming to power, Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched a high-profile campaign to weed out corruption among party and government officials.
Zhou Yongkang was accused of several crimes, including “serious violations of party discipline”, “accepting large sums of bribes”, “disclosing party and state secrets” and “committing adultery with several women” as part of corrupt transactions, Xinhua news agency reported.
His arrest was announced in a statement by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, released late on Friday night.
China’s ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang is being investigated for suspected “serious disciplinary violation”, state media say.
The news confirms rumors about the hugely powerful former minister, who has not been seen in public for months.
Zhou Yongkang headed China’s Ministry of Public Security and was a member of the top decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee.
The move to target him will send shockwaves through the political elite.
Zhou Yongkang is the most senior Chinese official to be investigated since the Gang of Four – which included the wife of late leader Mao Zedong – in the early 1980s.
China’s ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang is being investigated for suspected serious disciplinary violation
He retired in late 2012, as Xi Jinping took over from Hu Jintao as the Communist Party leader and China’s president.
Since the transition, Xi Jinping has introduced a wide-ranging crackdown on corruption within the party, warning graft could threaten the organization’s very survival.
In a brief statement, state-run Xinhua news agency said the investigation would be conducted by the Communist Party’s corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
No timescale was given for the probe, which has been widely expected.
Several individuals believed to have had close ties to Zhou Yongkang have also been targeted in corruption investigations in recent months.
Zhou Yongkang’s career saw him head both the ministry charged with overseeing domestic security and China’s largest energy company, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
He was also the party’s top official in Sichuan province.
Allies of his from all three areas are now the subject of various investigations.
Only a handful of people serve on the Politburo Standing Committee (in Zhou Yongkang’s time nine, currently the number is seven) and they are seen as the most powerful individuals in China.
Zhou Yongkang was also an ally of Bo Xilai, the one-time high-flying former Chongqing party chief who was jailed last year.
Mining tycoon Liu Han, believed to have links to China’s former security chief Zhou Yongkang, has been sentenced to death.
According to Xinhua agency, a Hubei court has found Liu Han and his brother Liu Wei guilty of “organizing and leading mafia-style crime and murder”.
The two men were among a group of 36 people charged with similar crimes.
Mining tycoon Liu Han is believed to have links to China’s former security chief Zhou Yongkang
Liu Han’s sentencing is believed to be part of a wider corruption crackdown linked to ZhouYongkang’s network.
The court verdict stated that, among other things, Liu Han and his group had “in an organized fashion obtained financial gains via illegal activities”.
They had also on multiple occasions “committed murder, harm and illegal detention”.
The verdict stated they relied on “the cover-ups and collusion of government employees” to illegally control gaming machines in Guanghan in Sichuan province.
Liu Han, who is the former head of mining conglomerate Sichuan Hanlong Group, was ranked 148th on Forbes‘ list of the richest Chinese business people in 2012.
His former company once tried to take over Australian miner Sundance Resources Ltd.
Chinese state media said previously that the Sichuan-based gang had had strong political ties that played a role in Liu Han’s appointment as a delegate in Sichuan’s political advisory body.
In recent months, several top officials from Sichuan province linked to Zhou Yongkang have come under scrutiny.
Zhou Yongkang was the party secretary in Sichuan province before becoming head of China’s Public Security Ministry in 2003.
In April, China announced it had removed from office Guo Yongxiang, a former Sichuan vice-governor, and that Sichuan’s former deputy party chief Li Chuncheng was being investigated for bribery.
Speculation has swirled for months that Zhou Yongkang is being investigated for corruption, although none of the rumors have been confirmed officially.
Veterans of Chinese Communist Party have written to President Hu Jintao to ask him to sack leading politician Zhou Yongkang.
Zhou Yongkang is currently in charge of China’s security apparatus.
In an open letter to President Hu Jintao, the party’s general secretary, the veterans suggest Zhou Yonkkang is part of a movement to revive the China of Mao Zedong.
Speculation has been growing about the future of Zhou Yongkang since the downfall of another top politician, Bo Xilai.
It is not often that party members make such a daring plea to their boss.
Zhou Yongkang is currently in charge of China's security apparatus
The letter urges the president to sack Zhou Yongkang from his post as head of China’s police force, its courts and its spy network.
He is also a member of the standing committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the country’s highest decision-making body.
The letter’s authors, who all know each other, also want him out of that job too.
Some of the veteran party members who wrote the note joined the Chinese communists before they took power in 1949.
They hold no senior positions – and do not seem to be particularly influential.
But one of the authors, Yu Yongqing, said they had received hundreds of calls of support, and some threatening ones.
Yu Yongging, who held a senior position in the party in the city of Zhaotong in Yunnan province, said Zhou Yongkang had to go because of his support for Bo Xilai.
Bo Xilai was recently sacked from his position in the party’s politburo and as party secretary of the city of Chongqing, where he led a campaign that sought to revive interest in the Mao Zedong era.
“Mr. Bo confessed that he has received support from Zhou Yongkang. Mr. Zhou also helped him to make contact with various central party departments,” said Yu Yongging.
The letter seems to warn about the dangers of reviving an interest in Chairman Mao and his policies.
It stresses the danger China faces from such things as corruption and the inequality of wealth without political reform.
For weeks there has been speculation about the future of Zhou Yongkang.
There has been no official comment, but this letter shows there is some concern about Zhou Yongkang within the party.
The letter also calls for the sacking of Liu Yunshan, the head of the party’s propaganda department.
He has been tipped for promotion later this year when the party holds a once-in-a-decade reshuffle of its top leaders.
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