A Chinese court sentenced a former Justice minister to life imprisonment, an indication that President Xi Jinping is continuing his anti-corruption campaign ahead of a Communist Party meeting that is anticipated to provide him with more control.Â
Thursday, China Central Television reported that Fu Zhenghua was given a death sentence with no possibility of release by a court in the northeastern city of Changchun.
The court ruled that Fu’s unlawful actions, which included accepting bribes worth 117 million yuan ($16.5 million) during a 16-year period while serving as Beijing police chief and vice minister of public security, “did serious harm to the state and society,” according to the state broadcaster.
The news cited court documents indicating that Fu’s wrongdoing dates back to 2005, when he was the deputy head of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, and that he and his family continued to accept bribes until he was arrested by anti-corruption agents in 2021.
The court stated that during his tenure as head of the Beijing PSB from 2014 to 2015, Fu “concealed evidence of his younger brother Fu Weihua’s alleged major offences and failed to deal with them in line with the law.” “As a result, Fu Weihua evaded prosecution for an extended period of time,” it stated.
Xi has made the fight against corruption a highlight of his decade in control, a move that has earned popular support for cleaning up the government and eliminating prospective opponents.
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The Chinese leader cleans up law enforcement before the party event
According to the court, Fu Zhenghua agreed to all accusations, expressed regret, and gave investigators information about other corruption instances. Due to the “serious harm inflicted to the country and society,” Fu’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after a two-year reprieve. However, it was stated that no further commutations or paroles would be granted.
The court termed Fu’s bribes as “particularly large,” his offenses as “particularly serious,” and their social impact as “particularly terrible.”
Fu established a reputation for himself with a high-profile raid on Beijing’s upscale Passion nightclub in 2010, only months after assuming the position of the police chief of the provincial capital.
In 2013, he was selected to assist in leading the investigation of former security head Zhou Yongkang, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2015 for corruption and abuse of power. Zhou, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, is the highest-ranking official to fall into Xi’s anti-corruption campaign.
Between 2016 and 2018, Fu endured a succession of professional losses, beginning with the loss of his position as deputy director of the party’s main security organ, the Central Political, and Legal Affairs Commission, followed by his dismissal from the police force.
Prior to his appointment as justice minister in 2018, he served as deputy minister of public safety, where he mostly controlled attorneys and jails – a job deemed less powerful than his prior position as police chief.
In May 2020, he resigned as minister of justice and was named to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a consultative forum often reserved for bureaucrats nearing retirement.
In 2021, while a purge of senior law enforcement and judiciary figures was underway, Fu became the subject of an investigation. His arrest was confirmed in April of this year after he had already been booted from the party and removed from his position in March.
Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party’s anti-corruption watchdog, accused Fu of working with Sun, the former vice-minister of public security who pleaded guilty in July to accepting bribes, manipulating the stock market, and illegally possessing firearms.
State media had previously reported that Fu, who pleaded guilty in July, and the three individuals jailed a day earlier were members of a “political clique” led by former vice minister of public security Sun Lijun.
Sun was expelled from the party last year for “cultivating personal power and creating an interest group,” language that may be interpreted as an indication they constituted a threat to Xi’s leadership.
In July, Sun was tried on charges of accepting more than 646 million yuan in bribes and having a firearm. He has not been sentenced yet.
In July 2020, China initiated a statewide operation to clean up its justice system, targeting more than 170,000 officials and police officers over the following two years.
As a result of this investigation, a few high-profile law enforcement officers are being sent to prison in the lead-up to the 16 October party congress, which will likely set Xi up for an unprecedented third five-year term as president.
Wednesday, a court in Hebei sentenced former Shanghai police head Gong Daoan to life in prison, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Former Chongqing police chief Deng Huilin and former Shanxi police chief Liu Xinxin were sentenced to 15 and 14 years in prison, respectively, by two separate courts in a northern province adjoining the capital.
In China’s system of government, the last minister or equivalent to get a sentence as severe as Fu’s was Zhao Zhengyong in July 2020. The former provincial party chairman of Shaanxi was given a suspended death sentence for accepting 717 million yuan in bribery.
