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Chinese official sentenced to death for teenage rapes

A court in central China sentenced a former government adviser to death for raping more than 20 teenage girls and other crimes, official media said yesterday.

Wu Tianxi (吳天喜), 61, was arrested last April and accused of rape, involvement in organized crime and financial misdealings, the Xinhua news agency said.

Wu was chairman of a major food processing company and had been a vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference of Zhenping County in Henan Province, Xinhua said.

Calls to the court in Zhenping County rang unanswered yesterday, and Xinhua did not provide further details.

ANTI-CORRUPTION

The announcement of Wu's fate came one day after Chinese President and Communist Party leader Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) pledged to ramp up efforts to stamp out corruption.

"Anti-corruption measures and the upholding of integrity should run thoroughly through the nation's economic, political and cultural makeup and the party's ideological, organizational, work style and institutional building," Hu was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

China's leaders routinely identify corruption as the leading challenge to communist rule, although they have been reluctant to permit independent investigations.

INDICTED

China's chief justice announced last year that 29,966 officials were indicted for corruption in 2006, the latest year for which figures were available. That figure was virtually unchanged from the year before despite several high-profile graft investigations, including one that toppled the communist party chief in Shanghai.

Police have also placed a higher priority on tracking down corrupt officials on the run, with the number captured in 2006 -- 1,670 -- rising more than 137 percent over the year before.
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