FROM HIS TINY FLAT in a faceless apartment complex, 84-year-old Chen Rongjie plotted the downfall of the 'corruption queen' of Hunan province. It took 12 years and three assassination attempts against him to bring her to trial.
In her summary at the end of a four-day hearing in the provincial capital of Changsha on March 23, Jiang Yanping, 42, the former deputy general manager of the province's Engineering Construction Group, suddenly changed her story and confessed to accepting eight million yuan (about HK$7.5 million) in bribes and to sleeping with her bosses in order to escape from poverty to a life of wealth, privilege and status.
For Mr Chen, sitting in a blue Mao suit in the front row of the courtroom, it was the vindication of 12 years of work. 'My investigations have led to the downfall of more than 20 corrupt officials,' he said. 'But this was the most difficult case and the one on which I had to spend the most energy. During the course of reporting what she did, I ran into many obstacles. But I was confident of success.'
After retiring from the province's Road Bureau in 1981, Mr Chen set himself up as a one-man ombudsman to hear the injustices and grievances of his fellow citizens and to try to redress them. He has documents relating to more than 2,000 cases in the 10-square-metre room that doubles as his bedroom and office.
It was at the end of 1988, when he was delegate to the provincial National People's Congress, that Mr Chen first received a report from workers at a department store, which Jiang managed, alleging she had embezzled 50,000 yuan of the company's money. He conducted an investigation that confirmed their story and in February 1989 sent a report on Jiang's corruption to the Hunan Daily newspaper. It was never published.
Then, with Mr Chen's support, the workers sent a report on Jiang's corruption to the local office of the procurate, which did nothing, apart from telling her of its content and the signatories. Jiang fired them all in the name of 'reform'.