(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-11 16:11

The court heard that, although he clearly knew that his brother did not meet the qualifications to develop the land, he agreed with a related department to acquire land for Chen Liangjun against the rules.

As a result, 537 mu (35.8 hectares) was acquired, including 183 mu of arable land.

Chen Liangjun ultimately acquired usage rights for 354 mu of land, which caused economic losses of 344.1 million yuan to the state. Later, the court heard, Chen Liangjun resold the land use rights and illegally earned 118 million yuan.

In 2004, Chen -- then the Party Chief of Shanghai -- defied regulations to help an unidentified company obtain financing from the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Labor and Social Security, putting 1 billion yuan of the social security fund at huge risk.

The Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled that Chen had taken a huge amount of bribes and abused his official powers to cause great losses involving public assets, as well as to the interests of the nation and the people. It termed his crimes "hideous."

However, since he showed remorse over his bribe-taking and returned all the illicit gains, the court had shown him leniency and rendered a verdict in accordance with the law.

The court started the trial on March 25.

On July 5, 2006, the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, working with other relevant departments, launched an investigation into the reported mismanagement of the social security fund by the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Labor and Social Security.

During the investigation, Chen was suspected of having committed severe violations of party discipline. And on August 24, 2006, a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee decided to conduct a preliminary verification of Chen's situation.

On September 24, 2006, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, after hearing the verification report by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, decided to remove Chen from the post of secretary of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and suspend him from the posts of member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and member of the CPC Central Committee.

On July 24, 2007, the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress decided to remove Chen from his position as deputy to the 10th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.

Prior to this, the third Standing Committee of Shanghai's Huangpu District People's Congress had removed Chen from his post as deputy to the 12th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress.

After reviewing the investigation results of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, on July 26, a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee decided to expel Chen from the CPC, and dismissed him from all government posts.

"The punishment was imposed on Chen according to the CPC Constitution and Regulation of the CPC on Disciplinary and Law on Civil Servants," a statement of the Central Committee said then.

Chen's case was then handed over to prosecutors.

The decision to expell Chen from the Party was endorsed on October 12 by the Seventh Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee.

Chen was "morally decadent," a statement of the CPC Central Committee once said, adding that he took advantage of his post to "philander" and traded power for sexual favors.

Chen was born in October 1946 in Ningbo city, east China's Zhejiang Province and joined the CPC in April 1980.

He became secretary of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in 2002.

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