Chinese prosecutors charge Zhou Yongkang's close allies

Prosecutors formally charged two disgraced senior cadres and close allies of former security tsar Zhou Yongkang on Thursday, according to a statement from the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Jiang Jiemin, former head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, was accused of taking huge bribes, having assets that he could not account for and abusing power while at oil and gas giant China National Petroleum Corporation.

Li Chuncheng, former deputy party chief of Sichuan , was indicted for taking bribes and abusing his power as an official in the province, a power base for Zhou.

The top procuratorate said it had wrapped up its investigations and handed over the cases to justice departments in Hanjiang and Xianning in Hubei . Both cases have been filed with local courts but no dates have been set for the trials.

Senior officials are often handed over for trial in areas outside their influence.

Jiang, 59, a prominent Zhou protégé, is a key member of the so-called Petroleum Gang, a Communist Party faction named by Xinhua in January.

He worked in the oil industry for four decades before being promoted to the Sasac post in March 2013. He was placed under investigation for "serious discipline violations", a term often used to refer to graft, after five months in the job.