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Prison term for ex-Shanghai Communist party chief

Beijing: The former Communist Party chief of China’s commercial capital, Shanghai, Chen Liangyu, was sentenced to an 18-year prison term on Friday for his involvement in a multi-million dollar pension fund scandal. Chen, 62, who was also a member of the exclusive 24-seat politburo of China’s ruling party was sacked from his post and expelled from the party in 2006. He was the highest ranking government official to be dismissed in a decade.

Chen was convicted by a court in Tianjin for “abuse of power and taking bribes” according to a report by the official Xinhua news agency. The court also announced the confiscation of some 300,000 yuan ($42,858) of his personal property.

The position of party secretary of Shanghai is one of the most powerful in the country. Chen’s successor to the post, Xi Jinping, has already been promoted to the standing committee of the politburo and is widely expected to succeed Hu Jintao as President in 2012.

Chen, a close ally of the former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, was one of over two dozen government officials and businesspeople arrested in connection with a scam in which more than $400 million of pension funds were improperly funnelled into real estate and infrastructure projects.

The former Shanghai party chief was specifically charged with taking bribes totalling 2.4 million yuan and abuse of power regarding project approvals, urban planning and job promotions. Chen has ten days to file an appeal.

Official corruption has emerged as one of the most formidable challenges faced by the communist party.

In December 2007, the website of China’s newly created anti-corruption bureau crashed barely a day after it became operational, due to the crush of visitors who tried to log on to register complaints.

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