Chen Liangyu will not attend NPC annual session

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-03-04 13:16

Former Shanghai Communist Party chief Chen Liangyu, who is under investigation for the Shanghai social security fund scandal, will not attend the annual meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC), a spokesman of the top legislature's annual session said here on Sunday.

Investigation into the Shanghai scandal is going smoothly and details of the case will be publicized at an appropriate time, said the spokesman, Jiang Enzhu, at a press conference ahead of the NPC's annual full session that will kick off on Monday.

A total of 3.7 billion yuan (about 475 million U.S. dollars) of social security funds were found misused in Shanghai in 2006. Chen was sacked last September for alleged involvement in the scandal.

Nine other Shanghai officials involved in the case have been stripped of their posts and expelled from the Communist Party of China, who may also face criminal charges