6 provincial-level officials sent to jail in 2005
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-03-11 10:37

In the fight against corruption and other duty-related crimes, Chinese courts sentenced six provincial or ministerial officials to prison in 2005, Chief Justice Xiao Yang said Saturday.

Local courts heard 24,277 cases of embezzlement, bribery and dereliction of duty, and sentenced 1,932 officials above the county level to prison, said Xiao, president of the Supreme People's Court, in his report to the annual session of the　Tenth National People's Congress.

Observers said while the number of convicted provincial level officials in 2005 remained the same as in 2004, the number of guilty county level official rose from 458 to 1,748 and prefecture　level official from 73 to 178.

The most notorious convicted provincial or ministerial level officials were Tian Fengshan, former minister of land and resources who were sentenced to life imprisonment, and Han Guizhi,　former chairman of Heilongjiang Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference who was give death penalty with a two-year reprieve.

The Chief Justice also said that local courts across the country heard 683,997 criminal cases in 2005, 6.17 percent up year-on-year, and sentenced 844,717 cases, or 10 percent more, to prison.

Local courts handled a total of 7,940,549 cases of law, with 1,059,796 billion yuan of money involved, said Xiao.