(From AFP)
A former Chinese deputy national police chief and ally of Zhou Yongkang, the country’s former security tsar, was sentenced on Tuesday to 15 years in prison for corruption, state media reported.
Li Dongsheng, 61, formerly China’s vice public security minister, was convicted of bribery by a court in the northern port city of Tianjin, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) reported.
Prosecutors previously accused him of taking nearly 22 million yuan in bribes.
The court gave him 15 years in jail and he decided not to appeal, CCTV said.
Before joining the public security ministry, Li spent 22 years at CCTV, rising from a photographer to become a deputy head of the biggest television network in China.
He was also a vice chief of the ruling Communist Party’s propaganda department for seven years.
Li is the latest in a long string of Zhou’s former allies to be jailed under President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption drive.
Zhou accumulated vast power as China’s security chief, rising to become a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the Communist Party’s most powerful body, and was the highest-ranked politician brought down in the campaign.
He was jailed for life in June on a barrage of charges that included taking bribes and “leaking state secrets”.
Jiang Jiemin, another high-profile disciple of Zhou and the former head of the commission that oversees China’s state-owned companies, was sentenced to 16 years in October.
Critics say Xi’s anti-corruption campaign is open to factionalism and that the Communist Party has failed to introduce systemic reforms to prevent graft, such as public disclosure of assets.