Ex-mayors, senior cadres, businessmen linked to Yuan Hua Group appear in five Fujian courts

Dozens of people out of hundreds implicated in the Yuan Hua smuggling scam yesterday faced courts in five cities throughout Fujian province, officials and media reports said.

The accused, including senior municipal officials and local business managers, are being tried in Xiamen, Fuzhou, Putian, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, Wen Wei Po reported yesterday.

This is the second set of legal proceedings regarding the Xiamen scandal. The first group of offenders was tried in a high-profile case in September. Related fringe cases against officials and cadres were dealt with by some local courts last month.

Wen Wei Po said about 30 suspects were due to appear before Xiamen Intermediate People's Court. They included former Xiamen vice-mayor Zhao Keming and several Customs officials. Another former Xiamen vice-mayor, Su Shuili, implicated in the case was not in court yesterday. He may be tried later.

Most of those now on trial are officials of large state-owned foreign trade firms. They include executives from Fujian Jiuzhou Group, Xiamen Special Economic Zone Foreign Trade Co, Xiamen Foreign Supplies Group, Xiamen International Trade Co, and Fujian Xiamen Petroleum Corp. They are charged mainly with graft and conspiracy to cover their crimes, the newspaper said.

In the first round of trials, 11 were sentenced to death and 73 others given jail terms. A legal source yesterday said the convicted were still awaiting the results of their appeals.

Xiamen Yuan Hua Group was accused of smuggling 23 billion yuan (HK$22 billion) worth of goods into China over the past four years.