Ex-medical firm chief in graft trial

A former deputy chairman of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings, a top patent-medicine manufacturer in Guangdong, has gone on trial to face charges of bribery and embezzlement involving nearly 3.7 million yuan, Xinhua reported yesterday.

At the trial, which started in the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court on Monday, prosecutors said Li Yimin, 54, received bribes of 209,000 yuan, HK$3.29 million and US$25,000 between 2000 and last year.

At that time Li was also deputy chairman of Hong Kong-listed Guangzhou Pharmaceutical and chairman of Shenzhen-listed Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical. Both are subsidiaries of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings.

Li, who started working for the pharmaceutical firm in 1970, told the court the money had been given to him as 'tokens of solicitude and care' by his friends after his daughter was seriously injured in an amusement-park ride in Australia in 2000, a separate report in the Nanfang Daily said.

Li's daughter, 17, had undergone more than 20 operations and medical treatment and legal proceedings had cost him about 3 million yuan, he said.

Li was put under shuanggui - a form of Communist Party disciplinary investigation that requires those involved to be available for questioning at all times - in June. On June 24, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings announced that Li had resigned from his positions at the two companies over a 'personal health issue', the report said.