(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-09-12 16:01

A mistress of the former transport chief in East China's Zhejiang Province was charged on Wednesday for taking bribes, the first case of its kind in the province.

Wang Peiying, mistress of Zhao Zhanqi since the early 1990s, was charged by the Huzhou municipal procuratorate with taking bribes of 550,000 yuan (US$73,121) from a company bidding for a contract to build a new air terminal.

Wang took the money from the Longyuan Construction Group Co Ltd and helped the company beat 70 other bidders to win the contract in 1998 when Zhao was the deputy head of the Xiaoshan airport construction headquarters.

She was charged according to the new judicial explanation concerning cases of bribery that was issued in early July by China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP).

The explanation listed ten "new forms" of bribery, including seeking profits through "specially-related persons", referring to close family members, relatives, lovers and people sharing joint interests.

Specially-related persons would be prosecuted as the accomplice in bribery cases, according to the explanation.

If an official takes advantage of his or her post to benefit a person or group and the latter offers a sum of money to his or her specially-related person, it constitutes bribery no matter whether or not the official touches the money or not.

Chinese prosecutors have long been wise to the fact that the identification of a mistress usually means a significant breakthrough in a corruption investigation. However, it had been hard to link the suspects with their lovers' actions in court.

Zhao Zhanqi, 58, was sentenced life in prison in July for receiving 6.2 million yuan in bribes from 1994 to 2006.