In a one-day trial last month, a former deputy party chief in China’s western Sichuan province did not dispute corruption charges lodged against him by the Chinese government, and said he would not fight the verdict.
Li Chuncheng was charged with accepting bribes and otherwise abusing his power, according to the official Weibo account of the Xianning Intermediate People’s Court in Hubei. “Li will not appeal the verdict,” his lawyer Shi Yuchen told Bloomberg. “He said he’ll accept any verdict ruled by the court.”
According to the Want China Times, Li’s trial took place at the same time proceedings began against Jiang Jiemin, former director of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Both are said to have ties to disgraced former Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang.
Jiang was tried on charges of accepting bribes and abusing his position. A verdict is pending. Li was accused of “degenerate” behavior; spending “tens of millions consulting feng shui experts”; and conducting a Daoist exorcism.
Zhou, formerly one of the party’s top leaders, has yet to stand trial on charges of bribery, abusing power and disclosing state secrets, according to the New York Times.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched a major campaign to weed out widespread corruption in the ruling party, and has pledged to identify both high-ranking and lower-level officials he has called “tigers and flies.” According to the Christian Science Monitor, “Zhou is the fiercest tiger yet captured in the hunt.”
