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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldsnow who wrote (10141)	12/20/2001 5:05:35 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 23908

Zero tolerance --the Chinese way: Wednesday December 19, 4:51 PM Former Chinese vice mayor executed for corruption The former vice mayor of China's fifth biggest city, Shenyang, was executed for his involvement in a massive corruption scheme bound up in local organised crime. Another senior official from Shenyang, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, was also shot Wednesday for involvement in the multi-million dollar scandal which tainted virtually all the city administration, the Xinhua news agency said. The ex-vice mayor, Ma Xiangdong, was convicted on October 10 of illegally amassing cash and goods worth 9.76 million yuan (1.17 million dollars), spending some 510,000 dollars of public funds and being unable to account for assets worth 10.68 million yuan, Xinhua said. He was arrested last year after being caught gambling away a further 40 million yuan at a casino in the former Portuguese colony of Macao. Also executed Wednesday was Guo Jiusi, former vice head of the financial bureau in the poverty-wracked industrial city. The pair were convicted during a series of trials which highlighted an intimate relationship between the Shenyang government and local organised crime. The October trials were held in seven separate courts in Liaoning and the eastern province of Jiangsu, in part following the indictment of several Shenyang city judicial official in related cases, but also, it was said, to protect suspects from mafia hits. At the centre of the scandal was former Shenyang mayor Mu Suixin, reportedly known to local mobsters as "Big Brother", who married an actress half his age and who had a penchant for dressing in black with matching gloves and sunglasses. He was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve after being found guilty of amassing bribes totalling 6.6 million yuan, while being unable to account for assets worth 2.7 million yuan. The sentence was suspended because Mu had been cooperative and returned all the money and valuables that he had received in bribes, according to reports at the time. Ning Xianjie, former director of the city's municipal construction committee, and tobacco monopoly director Zhou Wei both received suspended death sentences for their efforts in controlling local real estate development and tobacco rackets. At the October hearings another 11 defendants were given various jail terms ranging up to life imprisonment, while hundreds of other lower level officials and businessmen have been jailed in separate hearings or are awaiting trial. The cases came amid an attempt to clean up corruption in the Communist Party and government led by President Jiang Zemin, which has already seen the execution of other top central government leaders. Shenyang, a city of nearly six million people, saw economic growth of 6.2 percent in the first half of 2001, far below the average for Liaoning province, according to recent newspaper reports. Part of the reason is that officials lined their pockets by taking bribes from construction companies with no concern about the quality of the projects, local media said. The heavy-industrial hub, born out of China's Communist past, can ill afford economic mismanagement. It has suffered severely in the reform era with inefficient state companies forced to lay off more than a quarter of their workers. Currently only 13 percent of the city's industrial machinery measures up to international standards, while seven percent is of 1960s vintage or older, according to statistics published in local media. sg.news.yahoo.com If only Russkies would take a leaf out of the Chinese's book....