[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

April 17


CHINA:

Former Shaanxi freeway executive gets death penalty for bribery


The former board chairman of a northwest Chinese freeway construction
company received a death sentence, with a 2-year stay, after being
convicted for bribery on Wednesday.

The ruling was handed down by the Intermediate People's Court of Xi'an,
the capital of Shaanxi Province, against Chen Shuangquan, who formerly was
chairman of the Shaanxi Freeway Construction Group Company (SFCGC).

The court was told that Chen was appointed as chairman of the board of
SFCGC in April 2001. During his tenure, Chen was in charge of construction
of three freeways: Yan'an-Huangling, Xi'an-Hanzhong and an airport highway
for Xianyang, a city in interior Shaanxi.

The court heard that he took advantage of his post and sought benefits on
behalf of a number of construction organizations and individuals in
relation to freeway construction and loan guarantees.

He received substantial bribes in return, the court was told. These bribes
added up to 14.73 million yuan (about 2.1 million US dollars), which were
paid in various currencies, including 930,000U.S. dollars and 10 million
Japanese yen.

Chen and his family have returned some of the bribes.

The court said that the scale of the bribery was very serious and Chen
deserved the harshest punishment. However, since he had cooperated with
investigators, "leniency was shown in meting out the penalty," it said.

Also under the ruling, Chen was stripped of his political rights for life
and all his personal assets were confiscated.

On the same day, the court also found Du Xinke, chairman of the board of
the Huangling-Yan'an Freeway Company (a wholly-owned subsidiary of SFCGC)
and Zhao Feng, chief of the secretariat to the board of SFCGC, guilty of
accepting bribes.

An Fuqiang, deputy general manager of the Huangling-Yan'an Freeway
Company, was found guilty of facilitating bribery and accepting bribes.

Du received a 9-year jail sentence and confiscation of 200,000 yuan. Zhao
got 10 years in jail and confiscation of 30,000yuan, and An was ordered to
serve 11 1/2 years in jail, along with confiscation of 60,000 yuan.

It was not immediately known if any of the 4 would appeal.

In recent years, China has seen an increase in commercial bribery cases,
in the fields of construction, land acquisition, ownership transfer of
state-owned enterprises, government procurement, purchase and sale of
medicine, resources development and bank lending, among others.

In the 1st 7 months of 2007, there were 4,406 cases of commercial bribery,
8.2 % more than the same period of last year, according to the Supreme
People's Court.

Commercial briberies featuring corporate wrong-doings rose 37.3 % and
cases relating to individual employees of companies jumped by 52.1 % in
the 1st 7 months of last year.

A total of 31,119 commercial bribery cases were dealt with in China in the
past 2 years before August 2007, involving 7.079 billion yuan (about 943.8
million U.S. dollars), said Li Yufu, deputy director of the leading group
on anti-commercial bribery under the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China (CPC).

The most notorious "big fish" caught in the anti-commercial bribery fight
was Wang Youjie, former deputy director of the Standing Committee of Henan
Provincial People's Congress, the local parliament.

He was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for receiving bribes
worth 6.34 million yuan and possessing 8.9 million yuan worth of property
he was unable to account for.

Hu Xing, former deputy director of Yunnan Provincial Transport Department,
was given life imprisonment for abusing his authority in city construction
planning, real estate development and expressway project approval to take
more than 40 million yuan in bribes.

(source: Xinhua News)