Corruption in China: retired Xinjiang police chief to face trial on bribery charges
- Huang Yabo, former head of criminal investigation division, was accused by Chinese media in 2018 of helping suspects in a US$307 million loan scam to evade justice
- Retired official will stand trial in the city of Hami, Supreme People’s Procuratorate says
Huang Yabo, the former head and party chief of the public security bureau’s criminal investigation division, had been charged with “accepting bribes and using his influence to accept bribes”, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) said on Tuesday, adding that his case had been passed to prosecutors in Hami where he would face trial.
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The announcement was unusual in that it was the first time any information about Huang’s alleged wrongdoings had been released to the public.
The usual practice in such cases is for the relevant disciplinary commission to issue a statement that a party official has been detained and an investigation started, and another once they have been expelled from the party and legal proceedings have commenced.
The SPP statement did not say whether Huang had been expelled from the party.
Despite the abrupt nature of the arrest announcement, a 2018 report by Chinese news portal Sina accused Huang of helping suspects in a 2 billion yuan (US$307 million) loan scam to evade justice by halting an investigation into their alleged activities. He denied any wrongdoing at the time.
According to Chinese media reports, the 64-year-old spent his entire police career with Xinjiang’s criminal investigation unit, rising to the top job in 1995 before retiring in 2016.
Huang’s is the latest in a string of high-profile corruption cases involving police officials in Xinjiang.
His former deputy, Zhao Peixin, has been in detention and under investigation by the party’s anti-corruption watchdog since November 2019, and earlier this month, Dai Guanghui, the former deputy chief of the body that oversees law enforcement agencies in Xinjiang, was expelled from the party. He has been in detention since June and is awaiting trial.
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On March 14, authorities in China’s westernmost region launched an “education and rectification” campaign targeted at police officers, prosecutors, courts and prisons.
The official Xinjiang Daily quoted Chen as saying he planned to transform the region’s law enforcement agencies into an “ironclad army” capable of wining the “struggle against separatism and terrorism, and maintaining stability”.
