Ex-mayor given extra 7 yrs in jail

By Cui Jia (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-31 14:30

A former mayor of Fuxin, Liaoning province, who was convicted of embezzling funds and sentenced to eight years in prison in 2007, will have to spend an extra seven years behind bars.

The Pingshan People's Court increased Wang Yachen's jail sentence from eight years to 15 years after it found him guilty of new charges of embezzlement after his tenure as the mayor of Fuxin, the China Youth Daily reported yesterday.

Wang, 77, who is currently doing his time in prison, appealed to the Benxi Intermediate People's Court against the sentence, but later withdrew it, the paper said.

The court also confiscated assets worth 1.2 million yuan from Wang and imposed a fine of 400,000 yuan.

Wang, who was the mayor of Fuxin in 1987, rose to become the Party secretary of the city, and director of the Standing Committee of the municipal people's congress, before retiring in 1998.

After retirement, Wang was reportedly involved in a shopping mall project, developed by Gao Wenhua, a local businessman.

He reportedly made use of his political influence and joined Gao's company as a consultant, and later became the head of the mall project.

According to the latest evidence, Wang forced the company's accountants to cook up false entries in the records to illegally transfer assets worth 4.3 million yuan from Gao's company to another company, registered under his son Wang Xiaogang's name.

Wang Yachen then instigated Gao to set up a joint-venture company with his son, who falsely claimed to be a "South African citizen" in order to enjoy government benefits for foreign-venture firms.

Wang Yachen also had Gao, who owned 63 percent of the company, arrested under false charges in 2004 when he refused to step down as the president of the joint-venture company to make way for his son.

The authorities detained Gao for 11 months before he was released without any charges.