3 former officials charged with graft
Three former senior officials, including Lu Wei, former deputy head of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, have been charged with bribery by prosecutors, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate said on Monday.
When the investigation of Lu was completed by the supervisory commission of Zhejiang province, he was transferred to the Ningbo people’s procuratorate for prosecution, the SPP said in a statement. The prosecutors filed the case in Ningbo Intermediate People’s Court.
According to the indictment, 58-year-old Lu took advantage of his position to gain benefits for others, and used his influence to get other officials to do the same. He then accepted large bribes, either in cash or other assets, between 2001 and 2016.
Over the course of 16 years, he served as deputy head of Xinhua News Agency, publicity head of Beijing, vice-mayor of Beijing, head of the Cyberspace Administration, head of the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Administration and deputy head of the CPC Central Committee’s publicity department.
In November, the top anti-graft watchdog — the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection — launched an investigation of Lu for “serious violations” of Party discipline. In February, he was expelled from the Party and dismissed from his post.
In a separate development, Mo Jiancheng, former chief of the disciplinary inspection team sent by the CCDI to the Ministry of Finance, has been charged with accepting bribes. Mo’s case was filed by a branch of the Municipal People’s Procuratorate of Beijing in the city’s No 1 Intermediate People’s Court.
According to Beijing’s prosecuting department, Mo abused power to benefit others and used his position of influence to arrange for other officials to gain benefits for other enterprises or people. He also accepted large bribes, it said.
Before being named head of the CCDI team — and a member of the ministry’s Party Committee, for purposes of the inspection — Mo served in posts including mayor of Tongliao in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Party secretary in Tongliao and Baotou, and vice-governor and deputy Party secretary of Jiangxi province.
He was expelled from the Party and dismissed from public office in September.
Elsewhere, Zhang Jiehui, former deputy director of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Hebei province, has been charged with bribery in the Intermediate People’s Court of Taiyuan, Shanxi province, by the Taiyuan people’s procuratorate.