A court in Beijing, China has sentenced a former banker to a rare death sentence for accepting bribes worth US$151 million.
Bai Tianhui, the former general manager of China Huarong International Holding (CHIH), was sentenced to death by a court in Tianjin on Tuesday, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.
He was also stripped of his political rights for life and all his personal property was confiscated. According to the ruling of the No. 2 Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin, his ill-gotten profits will be recovered and handed over to the state treasury.
The court said Bai took advantage of his position to assist others in acquiring and financing projects in exchange for large sums of money.The court's decision said that Bai's act constituted the crime of bribery. The amount of bribery was particularly large, the circumstances of the crime were particularly serious, and the social impact was extremely bad, causing great harm to the interests of the country and the people.
The court said that his actions in providing tip-offs to the investigation of other cases were not sufficient to warrant a lesser sentence given the facts, nature and circumstances of his crimes.
Several Chinese officials have been punished in an anti-corruption campaign since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, but the death penalty is rarely imposed because most of them confess to their crimes and receive suspended death sentences or longer sentences. Receive. Agreed to jail sentence. Terms.CHIH is an offshore unit of China Huarong Asset Management (CHAM).In January, it was taken over by Citic Group and renamed China Citic Financial Asset Management, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
Bai is the second China Huarong official to receive the death penalty on corruption charges. In January 2021, the same court sentenced former CHAM president – and Bai's former boss – Lai Xiaomin to a similar sentence.
Lai was hanged a month after his sentencing, found guilty of taking bribes worth 1.79 billion yuan (US$247 million), embezzling public assets worth more than 25.13 million yuan (US$3.46 million), and bigamy. Went.
Bai Tianhui, the former general manager of China Huarong International Holding (CHIH), was sentenced to death by a court in Tianjin on Tuesday, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.
He was also stripped of his political rights for life and all his personal property was confiscated. According to the ruling of the No. 2 Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin, his ill-gotten profits will be recovered and handed over to the state treasury.
The court said Bai took advantage of his position to assist others in acquiring and financing projects in exchange for large sums of money.The court's decision said that Bai's act constituted the crime of bribery. The amount of bribery was particularly large, the circumstances of the crime were particularly serious, and the social impact was extremely bad, causing great harm to the interests of the country and the people.
The court said that his actions in providing tip-offs to the investigation of other cases were not sufficient to warrant a lesser sentence given the facts, nature and circumstances of his crimes.
Several Chinese officials have been punished in an anti-corruption campaign since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, but the death penalty is rarely imposed because most of them confess to their crimes and receive suspended death sentences or longer sentences. Receive. Agreed to jail sentence. Terms.CHIH is an offshore unit of China Huarong Asset Management (CHAM).In January, it was taken over by Citic Group and renamed China Citic Financial Asset Management, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
Bai is the second China Huarong official to receive the death penalty on corruption charges. In January 2021, the same court sentenced former CHAM president – and Bai's former boss – Lai Xiaomin to a similar sentence.
Lai was hanged a month after his sentencing, found guilty of taking bribes worth 1.79 billion yuan (US$247 million), embezzling public assets worth more than 25.13 million yuan (US$3.46 million), and bigamy. Went.
