Update | China’s ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang charged with corruption, leaking secrets

Former security chief Zhou Yongkang has been formally charged with taking bribes, abuse of power and intentionally leaking state secrets.

The announcement yesterday triggered speculation over when the trial would be held, how open it would be and whether Zhou, the first Politburo Standing Committee member to stand trial on criminal charges, would face the death penalty.

Zhou is to stand trial in Tianjin, about 120km from Beijing.

The corruption charges relate to a span between 1988 and 2012 that covers most of Zhou's three-decade political career, which began in 1983.

According to the Supreme People's Procuratorate, Zhou was accused of taking large bribes during his various roles. These were his time as vice-general manager of China National Petroleum Corporation; provincial Communist Party chief in Sichuan ; head of the Ministry of Public Security; and chief of the Central Politics and Law Commission. "[Zhou's] abuse of power has led to a great loss of public funds and has done severe damage to the national and public interest," the procuratorate said.

The maximum penalty for taking bribes is death. No details were given of the charge that he had intentionally leaked state secrets. The charge, which is distinct from that of leaking state secrets to foreign organisations or individuals, carries a maximum penalty of seven years' jail.

READ MORE: The rise and fall of Zhou Yongkang - from rural Jiangsu to the corridors of power

Zhang Qianfan, a legal scholar at Peking University, believed Zhou would not be executed. "The court is more likely to give him a reprieved [suspended] death sentence or life imprisonment … Still we will have to wait until the trial to see how much money is involved and whether it constitutes a crime subject to a death sentence," Zhang said.