Three top Chinese military officers held in graft probes

Three senior People's Liberation Army officers, including one from retired military chief Guo Boxiong's former power base, were detained by military prosecutors, the armed forces announced on Sunday.

The detention of Zhan Guoqiao, the former head of logistics for the Lanzhou Military Area Command, and Dong Mingxiang, who held the same post in Beijing, underscores the graft problem in that military arm.

Zhan Jun, a former deputy provincial commander in Hubei, had also been detained by military prosecutors, a statement on the PLA's official news portal said, citing an "authoritative military department". All three are of major-general rank.

Since the PLA changed tack earlier this year and started releasing updates on the graft crackdown in the military, five of the army's seven area commands have lost their logistics chiefs to corruption investigations. The exceptions are Nanjing and Jinan . Graft probes have also claimed former deputy logistics chief Gu Junshan and his successor Liu Zheng at the PLA's headquarters.

The announcement on Sunday said that both Lanzhou's Zhan Guoqiao and Hubei's Zhan Jun were investigated in December for suspected serious violations of discipline and their cases were handed over to military prosecutors last month.

It confirmed the South China Morning Post 's report on March 2 that Zhan Guoqiao was among more than a dozen major generals being investigated.