China will prosecute a former vice chairman of its top parliamentary advisory body for graft, including taking bribes and selling “ranks and titles,” the government said yesterday, the latest senior figure to fall in a deepening anti-corruption campaign.
Su Rong (蘇榮) had been one of the 23 vice chairmen of the largely ceremonial, but high-profile Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference until authorities began an investigation last year.
Su abused his power over personnel appointments and the operation of unidentified companies and took “an enormous amount of bribes,” the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said.
He “abused his power and caused great losses to state assets,” it said in a statement, without providing details.
“As a senior party official, Su Rong disregarded the party’s political rules ... wantonly sold ranks and titles, led the official ranks astray and damaged the atmosphere in society,” the statement said.
His influence was “abominable” and he had been stripped of his title and expelled from the party, it said.
Details of Su’s case have been handed to judicial authorities, it said, and he will face prosecution.
Su previously served as CCP boss for Jiangxi and Gansu provinces.
Chinese media has said the probe into Su was linked to his time in Jiangxi, and that Su’s wife took bribes related to land deals and construction projects.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate also said former Hubei Province vice governor Guo Youming (郭有明) and former Yunnan Province vice governor Shen Peiping (沈培平) and would be tried for graft.
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