China sentences former official to death over $325m bribery case

WEB DESK: A court in eastern China has sentenced a former senior city official to death for accepting more than 2.2b yuan ($325m) in bribes over a 30-year period, state media reported on Monday, according to BBC.

Yang Youlin, 69, who served in various influential administrative positions in Nanjing city from 1993 to 2023, was also convicted of embezzlement, abuse of power, and money laundering.

According to the Changzhou municipal court, the convict exploited his official roles to assist third parties in securing lucrative engineering contracts, land transfers, and project financing in exchange for massive kickbacks and valuables.

Much of his career was spent overseeing economic and technological development zones within Nanjing, positions that granted him sweeping powers over municipal investments.

The court in Changzhou city ruled that Yang had committed offences “of an extremely serious nature” and had “caused exceptionally heavy losses to the interests of the state and the people.” Consequently, the judiciary deemed that the severity of the crimes left no room for institutional leniency.

While courts in China occasionally reduce sentences or hand down suspended terms if a convicted individual cooperates by reporting on other offenders, the tribunal noted that Yang’s case was an exception.

Although the former official provided similar assistance to investigative authorities, the court declared that his offences were so “grave” that his cooperation “was insufficient to warrant a more lenient punishment.”

State media reported that Yang pleaded guilty and expressed deep remorse in his final statement before the bench. Yang was investigated as part of President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption crackdown, which has cut deeply through military ranks, high-level banking circles, and regional administrative sectors since its inception.

Capital punishment for white-collar crimes remains relatively rare in China, though the judiciary metes out death sentences occasionally if the financial sums involved exceed the 1b yuan threshold.

In 2021, former finance chief Lai Xiaomin was executed for taking 1.8b yuan in bribes, while Li Jianping, a former Inner Mongolia official, was executed in 2024 for embezzling and taking bribes totalling more than 3b yuan.