Former Beijing party boss Chen Xitong has been released on medical parole after serving eight years of his 16-year jail sentence for corruption in one of the most high-profile cases to affect the top echelons of the Communist Party leadership.
Separately, former China Everbright Holdings chairman Zhu Xiaohua has also been released on medical parole after serving four years of a 15-year sentence for corruption.
Sources close to Mr Chen said the 76-year-old was recently released into a top Beijing military hospital for treatment of unspecified illnesses.
However, Mr Chen was not expected to regain complete freedom and was most likely to have his movements restricted due to parole conditions and political reasons, the sources said.
Authorities are now trying to determine the pay entitlements for Mr Chen, who was a Politburo member and the mainland's eighth-ranked leader before his fall from power in 1995 and imprisonment in 1998.
Mr Zhu, 57, was recently released and is now recuperating in Shanghai, where he first made his mark as a respected banker. He became one of the mainland's most visible financial officials before his imprisonment in 2002.
Friends of Mr Zhu said he had deliberately kept a low profile and his release was known to only a small group of friends and family.