210 Chinese procurators punished in 2013

BEIJING -- China's procuratorates investigated and punished 210 prosecutors in 2013 for violating laws and regulations, as part of an ongoing campaign to "eradicate the black sheep" from among the judicial staff, the top procurator said on Monday.

According to Procurator-General Cao Jianming, 26 of them had already faced criminal charges.

The offenders had been publicly named and shamed to "sound the alarm" for their fellow prosecutors, Cao said in a report on the work of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) delivered to the national lawmakers at the ongoing annual parliamentary session.

China is in the middle of a popular anti-corruption campaign, which targeted both "tigers and flies", referring to high and low ranking corrupt officials.

Cao said procuratorates investigated last year 2,871 public servants at county levels and above, including 253 at city levels and eight at provincial and ministerial levels, in 2,581 cases of graft, bribery, and embezzlement of public funds involving more than one million yuan (about $163,300).

Earlier report also said a total of 31 high-profile officials were investigated by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) in 2013. Nationwide, about 182,000 officials were punished by the CPC's internal disciplinary body.

As the fight against graft picks up momentum, those in charge of rooting out graft are themselves being placed under increasing scrutiny.

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Highlights of work report of China's Supreme People's Procuratorate

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