Former deputy mayor of North China city sentenced to immediate death

Former deputy mayor of North China city sentenced to immediate death

Punishment showcases Party determination to crack down on corruption

A former deputy mayor of a North China city was sentenced to immediate death for accepting bribes worth 1.04 billion yuan ($166 million) by a court in Shanxi Province on Wednesday.

All death penalties by a lower court must be reported to the Supreme People's Court in Beijing for approval before they can be carried out.

Zhang Zhongsheng, ex-deputy mayor of Lüliang, was sentenced to death for accepting bribes and seeking illegal benefits for others with a severe impact on the local economy, according to the Intermediate People's Court in the nearby city of Linfen, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Few Party officials have received an immediate death sentence since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012.

After considering the scale of the crime and the harm to society, the court ruled immediate execution, according to a statement issued on the website of Shanxi High People's Court.

Among Zhang's 18 bribery cases, two involved more than 200 million yuan. Zhang also demanded others pay bribes to him of 88.68 million yuan, the statement said.

Zhang was "extremely greedy," it said. He "crazily took bribes from 1997 to 2013 and did not restrain himself after the 18th National Party Congress and caused extraordinarily great losses to the nation and its people and should be punished severely by law."

This ruling would deter corrupt officials as China was usually "very cautious about imposing a death penalty," Xie Zhiyong, a law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The decision was made not only because of the unusually sizeable amount of money Zhang had received, but also as his actions had an extremely bad influence on society and the local economy, damaging people's interests, Xie believed.

"And it is in accordance with China's law," he added.

In 2016, Bai Enpei, a former senior lawmaker with the National People's Congress, was sentenced to death - with a two-year reprieve - for taking 246.7 million yuan and holding excessive assets from unidentified sources, Xinhua reported.

Bai later received a life sentence, the standard practice for most such sentences, the Xinhua report said.

This showed China's determination to strengthen its crackdown on corruption, said Xie.

More than 159,000 people were punished for corruption and violating the Party code of conduct in China in 2017, according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC.

Since the start of 2017, a total 1,300 fugitives have returned to China, including 347 Party members and State functionaries as well as 14 others listed on a red notice of corruption suspects.