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A Chinese court sentenced the former head of one of the country’s three major state-owned phone carriers to 16 years in prison on charges of accepting bribes and abusing his authority, part of leader Xi Jinping’s politically-tinged anti-corruption camp...
BEIJING -- A Chinese court sentenced the former head of one of the country's three major state-owned phone carriers to 16 years in prison Tuesday on charges of accepting bribes and abusing his authority, part of leader Xi Jinping’s politically-tinged anti-corruption campaign.
Xi's campaign has ensnared thousands of Chinese officials and executives of state-owned companies in a long-running crackdown on embezzlement, taking bribes and other misbehavior. The campaign, while popular with the public, has allowed the Chinese president to sideline political rivals and so far shows no sign of letting up.
Li Guohua, formerly general manager of China Unicom, was sentenced by the Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern city of Qingdao, almost 15 months after the ruling Communist Party’s disciplinary body placed him under investigation. He was also fined 6 million yuan (nearly $831,000) and forced to return the roughly 45 million yuan ($6.2 million) that he received in bribes, with interest, the court said.
While “the amount of bribes Li Guohua accepted was particularly huge and the abuse of power was particularly serious,” he confessed to his crimes, aided in the investigation and showed contrition, earning himself a relatively lighter sentence, the court said. In such non-violent cases where defendants confess and cooperate, they may be entitled to sentence reductions of a further 20-50%.
China Unicom, or China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd., is one of the world’s biggest mobile phone carriers and also operates fixed-line internet and digital TV services. It reported 22.9 billion yuan ($3.1 billion) in profit last year on revenue of 372.6 billion yuan ($51.6 billion), a record-high in operating results.
