Top Chinese judge investigated for corruption
Supreme People's Court vice-president becomes most senior member of judiciary implicated in President Xi Jinping's zero-tolerance campaign
A vice-president of the mainland's top court is being investigated on suspicion of corruption, becoming the most senior member of the judiciary to be implicated in the anti-graft campaign.
Xi Xiaoming, 61, was being investigated for suspected "serious disciplinary violations and offences", the Communist Party's disciplinary watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said in a short notice on Sunday night, using a euphemism for corruption.
Xi is one of nine vice-presidents of the Supreme People's Court, which he joined in 1982. He is also the director of a centre for research into environmental and resource issues under the court, and was appointed in May to lead a new group researching the civil code.
Mainland media said he was the most senior judiciary official to be implicated in the anti-corruption drive, which was launched about three years ago.
The campaign has led to the downfall of various senior officials, including the former security tsar Zhou Yongkang , who was last month sentenced to life in jail on corruption charges.
In 2010 - before the launch of the anti-graft campaign - a previous vice-president of the court, Huang Songyou , became the highest-level judicial official to be found guilty of corruption since 1949, and was sentenced to life in jail.
President Xi Jinping kicked off the anti-graft campaign after coming to power in 2012. Inspection teams from the CCDI were dispatched to various government agencies and state-owned enterprises.