Official's eight-year trail of corruption

Details have emerged about the corruption case against a former senior official in Inner Mongolia who was jailed for life this month for taking more than 8.17 million yuan (HK$10 million) in bribes over eight years.

The Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court jailed Liu Zhuozhi after convicting him of 86 counts of bribery on July 2. He has not appealed against his conviction, The Beijing News reported yesterday.

The prosecutor said Liu accepted bribes between 2002 and 2010, when he was, in succession, head of the Xilingol League government, league Communist Party head and vice-chairman of the autonomous region's government.

The report said Liu's corruption started in July 2002 when a local company paid him about 200,000 yuan for help with its mining projects.

Liu had taken bribes from dozens of officials and companies in return for approving businesses, endorsing land and mining contracts and helping officials get promotions.

In recent years, the rush to mine Xilingol's abundant minerals resources - ranging from copper to rare earths - has scarred its hills, desiccated its pastures and fuelled unrest among Mongol herders. Environmental activists had accused Liu of involvement in the illegal occupation of land for mining, leading to the contamination of nearby grasslands.