Bribes earn ex-head of hi-tech zone suspended death sentence

The former head of Beijing's affluent hi-tech district was given a suspended death penalty yesterday for taking bribes worth more than 16 million yuan (HK$17.77 million), according to local media.

The Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court issued the death sentence, suspended for two years, to Zhou Liangluo, 49, former head of Haidian district, the capital's education and hi-tech hub, the Beijing Evening News reported.

The court also sentenced Zhou's wife, Lu Xiaodan, to life imprisonment for her involvement in about 8 million yuan worth of the bribes Zhou took, the paper said.

A suspended death sentence on the mainland is normally commuted to life imprisonment on condition of good behaviour.

Most of the bribes offered to Zhou during his tenure as the district chief, between November 2002 and April last year, came from property developers in exchange for land grabs and project approvals.

In 2005, Zhou 'used his official position to provide assistance' to Beijing Yongtai Real Estate Company, which successfully beat other tenders and landed the lucrative project to construct a commercial building for the district government and received a villa worth 2 million yuan, the paper said.

In 2006, Zhou 'offered help' to another property company, Ruijing Qingyuan, and in return his wife's name showed up on the company's payroll. Lu received about 290,000 yuan in salaries, bonuses and dividends even though she did not work for the company for a single day, it said. Also in 2006, Zhou pocketed bribes worth about 2 million yuan from the deputy manager of Yicheng Property Company, which won a hotly contested construction project.