Duan Yihe, former chairman of the Standing Committee of the Jinan Municipal People's Congress, is alleged to have hired his nephew-in-law, a Jinan policeman, to plant the car bomb that killed his mistress Liu Haiping on July 9.

Duan is also charged with taking bribes and asking for money with a total value of 1.69 million yuan (223,515 U.S. dollars). Moreover, he was not able to explain the sources of another 1.3 million yuan (171,934 U.S. dollars) of his assets, which was beyond his reasonable income level.

Duan's nephew-in-law Chen Zhi, an officer with the Jinan Municipal Public Security Bureau, and Chen Changbing, boss of a local auto repair plant, were charged with jointly planting the bomb in the car of the victim.

The three defendants pleaded guilty to all charges.

Zibo Intermediate People's Court of Shandong Province started the trial in the morning and will choose another day to announce the sentence.

Duan, 61, who has been expelled from the Communist Party of China and removed from Party posts after the case was exposed last month, began an intimate relationship with Liu, 30 years his younger, in 1993 when she worked at a local hotel, he admitted to the police.

Duan had been trying to split up with Liu since 1999 due to what he termed as "conflicts" in their relationship, but Liu refused.

Duan told police he had just wanted to arrange a traffic accident with the help of Chen Zhi, so that Liu would "lose her ability to think".

On July 9, Chen planted explosives in Liu's car and set off the blast by remote control when Liu was driving. Two passersby were injured in the explosion.