Former Hebei security chief in the dock for corruption

by Minnie Chan in South China Morning Post Apr 20, 2017 at 11:32pm
A former security chief of the Chinese province of Hebei pleaded guilty in a Jiangsu court on Thursday to a range of graft charges against him, state media reported.
Zhang Yue, 56, a former provincial Communist Party standing committee member and secretary of Hebei’s politics and law commission, was on trial in the Changzhou Intermediate People’s Court accused of abusing his power and taking more than 157 million yuan (US$22.8 million) in bribes, China Central Television reporte
Zhang pleaded guilty to the charges against him, the report said.
A verdict has yet to be handed down in the case.
Disgraced former senior spy official Ma Jian, who is also facing prosecution for corruption, alleged Zhang colluded with him to take down rivals of businessman Guo Wengui, who is now in the United States.
China said on Wednesday that it had asked Interpol to issue a “red notice” for Guo. A red notice is a request to locate and provisionally arrest someone pending extradition.
Chinese media previously reported that Zhang had been a key force opposing a review of a high-profile rape and murder case in the province.
Nie Shubin, 20, was executed in 1995 for the murder of a woman in Shijiazhuang, only for another man confess to the crime a decade later.
The provincial high court agreed to review the case but little progress was made for the next nine years.
Nie was exonerate in December last year, a few months after the central government started to investigate Zhang for suspected disciplinary violations.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2089319/former-hebei-security-chief-dock-corruption