A former general manger of Silk Street Market will face trial for his alleged involvement in the sale of counterfeit goods there and for alleged bribery.

Chaoyang district court decided this week that it will hear the case.

The current manager of the market, a woman surnamed Hu, told METRO on Tuesday she "was not comfortable making a comment".

She added that Silk Street, which is also known as Xiushuijie, will hold a press conference next month

to talk about measures it

has brought in to end the sale of counterfeited copies of designer brands.

Chaoyang's prosecutor says Wang Zili, who was the general manager of Silk Street between December 2005 and July 2009, is being charged in connection with his alleged involvement in the sale of fake designer handbags.

Wang's name came up in August 2009 after police raided a storeroom at the market and found 8,425 bags with logos similar to designer stores Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Chanel.

The bags were said to have been worth more than 760,000 yuan.

The man attempting to

sell the bags at the market, Yang Changjun, was arrested and charged and said in

court that Wang was really behind his operation.

Yang claimed Wang persuaded him to buy a large quantity of fake bags from Guangzhou for between 10 yuan and 100 yuan each. Yang would then sell them to store owners at the market for 15 percent more so they could sell them on to the public.

Yang was sentenced to three and a half years in prison earlier this year.

In addition to charges connected to the sales of the fake handbags, Wang is accused of charging Silk Street vendors 300,000 yuan between 2007 and 2009 in return for letting them sell fake goods.

Prosecutors say Wang's case involves huge sums of money.

But they added that the goods that were seized were never sold to the end customer so Wang can only be tried for an attempted crime instead of an actual crime, which may mean a lesser punishment.

Wang Jian, lawyer at Haodong Law Firm, said the sale of counterfeit goods usually warrants a sentence of between three and seven years. The bribery solicitation charge could be worth more than 10 years.

The government has been cracking down harder on trademark infringement recently.

Zu Shaozhong, the former manager of Silk Street's security, is facing the same charges as Wang.