By
The Associated Press
SHANGHAI, China - Splashing pictures of ill-gotten gains across the main evening news broadcast, China announced death sentences yesterday for 11 people, among them police and government officials, in the nation's largest corruption scandal.
In all, 84 people were convicted of involvement in a multibillion-dollar smuggling ring that doled out huge bribes to officials whose influence touched the apex of power.
Twelve were sentenced to life imprisonment and 58 received lesser jail terms in the huge racket centered on the shady Yuanhua Group in the busy southeastern port of Xiamen, state media reported. Three others received suspended death sentences, usually commuted later to life in prison.
In a lengthy report on the sentences, state TV ran film evidence of the decadent style the syndicate kept: A tiger skin rug laid out on a conference table, confiscated cars belonging to corrupt bureaucrats, a sack of gold rings, wads of cash and credit cards and a picture of a young woman, said to be a lover kept for one official by Lai Changxing, Yuanhua's boss.
Footage showed the luxurious interior of a six-story pleasure palace, complete with hot tub-equipped bedroom suites, where Lai plied officials with women.
In reports from trials in five cities, the convicted were shown standing before judges, flanked by green-uniformed police.
Among those sentenced to death were Deputy Mayor Lan Fu of Xiamen in Fujian province; the city's customs chief, Yang Qianxian, and Zhuang Rushun, deputy head of public security for Fujian, the reports said.
The magnitude of the case and the seniority of those involved is said to have caused rifts among Chinese leaders in Beijing. But state media, in providing the government's fullest account of the case that was tried in intense secrecy, left many questions unanswered.
The reports made no mention of the former head of military intelligence, said by Communist Party insiders to have been toppled in the scandal, or of a tainted protege of President Jiang Zemin. China's top police official in charge of fighting smuggling, quietly taken into custody nearly two years ago, also is to go on trial soon.
Media reported that bribed officials helped Yuanhua and others smuggle cars, oil, cigarettes and other goods worth $6.4 billion. The smuggling ring cost China's treasury $3.6 billion in lost import duties, the Xinhua News Agency said.
One official reportedly took as much as $960,000 - a huge sum in a country with annual per capita incomes of about $750.
Seeking "exorbitant profits," the syndicate used "cash and sexual favors" to corrupt officials and cause major losses to state coffers and damage to public morality, Xinhua said.
The investigations marked a "major achievement" in the struggle against smuggling, the agency said.
The case was so huge that it was divided among courts in Xiamen and four other cities in Fujian, where trials began Sept. 13.
Although much talked about since the investigation secretively began 15 months ago, the government and its media have been virtually silent on the scandal. The announcement of verdicts yesterday was the first time the government even disclosed the names of most defendants.
Among others convicted were two brothers of Lai, Yuanhua's boss, who got seven- and 15-year sentences.
Lai himself is believed to have fled China and is still a fugitive. Defendant Zhuang, the Fujian deputy police chief, was accused of advising Yang to flee.
Twenty-five of the defendants were expelled by the Communist Party and fired from government jobs, Xinhua said. It said eight worked in province-level departments.
However, the report did not clarify how many defendants were government officials. It named dozens of defendants with no mention of their jobs, or government or Communist Party ties.
While leaders at the top may still be shielded, the government is making examples of lower-ranked officials to convince a disgusted public that it is tackling pervasive corruption.
Thousands of officials have been punished in yearslong anti-graft campaigns. This year, courts have put to death a deputy provincial governor and a deputy chairman of China's legislature - the highest-level officials ever executed for corruption since the party came to power 51 years ago.
"The government is dead serious about tackling corruption, and it's not just window dressing," said Daniel Gay, an economist for Singapore-based business research firm Strategic Intelligence.
However, the Communist Party's refusal to permit independent law enforcement will make it nearly impossible to end a system where graft is "part of the culture" for low-paid officials who don't answer to the public, Gay said.
"It's going to be years, if not decades, before China can stamp out corruption," he said.
