Corruption trial charges contested by editor
Former Guangzhou Daily editor-in-chief Li Yuanjiang went on trial yesterday on charges of accepting bribes totalling 1.01 million yuan.
Li argued with prosecutors about some of the charges, said a source who attended the hearing at Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court. The court did not announce a verdict.
In a lengthy report on the case last year, Xinhua said Li had accepted bribes of 1.01 million yuan. Among the bribes he is accused of accepting were payments of US$19,000 and HK$10,000 related to the newspaper's purchase of printing equipment.
Li previously served as head of the publicity department of the Guangzhou branch of the Communist Party.
Because of the sensitivity of the case, observers - mainly Guangzhou Daily staff members who managed to get into the court room - refused to make any comments on what they had seen or heard when they left the court house after the hearing.
Some even denied that they were from the newspaper, and stopped their colleagues from talking to reporters who were covering the trial.
Li's wife, Huang Xingqun, declined to make any comments on the case. 'Please understand our feelings. We need some peace of mind,' she said.
'You can get information about the trial from other channels. There are a lot of people attending the trial.'
One Guangzhou Daily staff member who attended part of the morning's hearing said that his former boss looked confident.
'He still has the look of a leader,' he said.
Li's lawyer, Wang Zhongxing of the Guangdong Lingnan legal firm, also declined to comment on the case.
Li, who is in his early 50s, was one of 25 top officials involved in major corruption cases in Guangzhou in 2002.
