Former official given life sentence for graft

Chen Rugui, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for taking bribes valued at more than 108 million yuan ($15 million).

Nanning Intermediate People's Court in the capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region also confiscated all Chen's illegally gained personal property.

All of the bribes Chen received were handed over to the national treasury, the court said.

Chen was found to have taken advantage of his various posts — directly or through others — to illegally siphon large bribes for providing assistance to units and individuals in engineering contracts, project promotions and enterprise operations between 2003 and 2022.

Chen, born in September 1962 in Guangdong province, was deputy Party secretary and mayor of Shenzhen in 2017. He was promoted to vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress in April 2021.

He was once deputy Party secretary and executive vice-mayor of Guangzhou, Guangdong's provincial capital, and later Party secretary of Zhongshan before assuming office in the Shenzhen special economic zone.

In Guangzhou, Chen was once secretary-general of the government and director of the city's bureau of housing and rural-urban development.

Chen was detained and put under investigation in June 2022, and was later dismissed from public office and expelled from the Communist Party of China.

The court said Chen should be severely punished according to law, as his behavior constituted the crime of accepting bribes and he had received a particularly large amount of bribes.

Chen pleaded guilty, repented and actively returned the money, it said.