Source: BBC News (6 January 2021)
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55555417
The death penalty handed out to a former Chinese finance chief found guilty of corruption has been heavily criticised by human rights groups.
Lai Xiaomin was arrested in 2018 on charges of taking 1.8bn yuan (£200m, $280m) in bribes over a 10-year period.
It is one of the most severe sentences to stem from President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive.
Human Rights Watch said "China is clearly taking a major step backwards."
Chinese officials said crimes committed by Mr Lai were during his time as chairman of Huarong Asset Management. The financial firm was set up in 1999 to to take bad debts off China's largest state-owned banks.
On Tuesday, a court in the northern city of Tianjin, said his crimes had "caused serious losses to the interests of the country".
"Imposing the death sentence on Lai Xiaomin for financial crimes, such as bribe taking, is outrageous and unacceptable and clearly violates China's commitments to respect international human rights standards," Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch told the BBC.
'killing the chicken to show the monkeys'
Mr Robertson said the death penalty should be immediately commuted to prison time.
"By imposing this sentence, China is clearly taking a major step backwards on rights in what appears to be an effort to create fear among businessmen."
Human Rights Watch calls the tactic 'killing the chicken to show it to the monkeys' so it "makes an example of one person to instil obedience in all the others."
Yaqiu Wang, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, added that President Xi "has little intention to end or slow down the campaign" to stamp out corruption.
Human Rights Watch added that it opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as "inherently cruel, and believes it violates of the right to life and fundamental dignity that all human beings possess."
The group has called on the Chinese government to impose an immediate moratorium on its use.
Cleaning up
Under Mr Lai's leadership, Huarong raised vast amounts of capital and expanded aggressively into investment banking services.
The asset management company which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, also developed its own brokerage, insurance and leasing arms.
Caixin, a finance magazine in China, reported that 100 properties developed by a Huarong subsidiary in south China were distributed to Mr Lai's ex-wife and mistresses.
China's Communist Party has taken an increasingly tough stance on corruption among government officials and corporate executives, with more than one million punished.
In 2016, China raised the threshold for capital punishment related to corruption to 3m yuan from 100,000 yuan, but the penalty has seldom been used.
"China's leaders clearly continue to rely on the death penalty as a deterrent, but it seems they have a message to send to the broader public about their willingness to use it," Joshua Rosenzweig, head of Amnesty International's China team, told the BBC.
"If this signals a return to the so-called 'strike hard' approach to crime, then it could have really serious consequences for China," he added.
Mr Lai had previously worked at China's central bank and banking regulator.
Showing posts with label bribery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bribery. Show all posts
Wednesday, 21 July 2021
China Sentences Former Bank Chief to Death in Rare Move
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald (6 January 2021)
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/china-sentences-former-bank-chief-to-death-in-rare-move-20210106-p56rzm.html
Beijing: The former head of state-owned China Huarong Asset Management Co Ltd has been sentenced to death for bribe taking in one of the harshest punishments for economic crimes in recent years.
Lai Xiaomin, 58, was also found guilty by the Second Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin of lesser charges including corruption and bigamy.
Life sentences and suspended death sentences commuted to life after two years are frequently handed down in corruption cases, but death sentences without the chance of reprieve have become rare in recent years. Such sentences are automatically appealed to China's highest court.
Lai was placed under investigation by the ruling Communist Party's corruption watchdog in 2018 and expelled from the party later the same year.
In its ruling, the Tianjin court cited the “especially enormous” size of the bribes Lai accepted, saying they exceeded 600 million yuan ($120 million) in one instance. In total, it said Lai collected or sought to collect 1.79 billion yuan over a decade in exchange for abusing his position to make investments, offer construction contracts, help with promotions and provide other favours.
He was also convicted of embezzling more than 25 million yuan in state assets and starting a second family while still married to his first wife.
Although Lai provided useful details about malfeasance by his subordinates, the seriousness of his bribe-taking and “degree of harm caused to society" were not enough to win him leniency, the court said in its ruling.
“Lai Xiaomin is lawless and greedy in the extreme," the ruling said. “His crimes are extremely serious and must be punished severely under law."
Huarong is one of four entities created in the 1990s to buy non-performing loans from banks, helping to revive the state-owned finance industry. Such asset management companies expanded into banking, insurance, real estate finance and other fields.
Lai was accused of squandering public money, illegally organising banquets, engaging in sexual dealings with multiple women and taking bribes, the anti-corruption agency said in 2018.
Investigators seized hundreds of millions of yuan in cash from Lai’s properties, the Chinese business news magazine Caixin reported in 2018.
Lai was one of hundreds of officials at government agencies, state companies and the military who have been detained in an anti-corruption crackdown launched in 2012.
Other senior officials snared in the crackdown include a former head of China’s insurance regulator.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/china-sentences-former-bank-chief-to-death-in-rare-move-20210106-p56rzm.html
Beijing: The former head of state-owned China Huarong Asset Management Co Ltd has been sentenced to death for bribe taking in one of the harshest punishments for economic crimes in recent years.
Lai Xiaomin, 58, was also found guilty by the Second Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin of lesser charges including corruption and bigamy.
Life sentences and suspended death sentences commuted to life after two years are frequently handed down in corruption cases, but death sentences without the chance of reprieve have become rare in recent years. Such sentences are automatically appealed to China's highest court.
Lai was placed under investigation by the ruling Communist Party's corruption watchdog in 2018 and expelled from the party later the same year.
In its ruling, the Tianjin court cited the “especially enormous” size of the bribes Lai accepted, saying they exceeded 600 million yuan ($120 million) in one instance. In total, it said Lai collected or sought to collect 1.79 billion yuan over a decade in exchange for abusing his position to make investments, offer construction contracts, help with promotions and provide other favours.
He was also convicted of embezzling more than 25 million yuan in state assets and starting a second family while still married to his first wife.
Although Lai provided useful details about malfeasance by his subordinates, the seriousness of his bribe-taking and “degree of harm caused to society" were not enough to win him leniency, the court said in its ruling.
“Lai Xiaomin is lawless and greedy in the extreme," the ruling said. “His crimes are extremely serious and must be punished severely under law."
Huarong is one of four entities created in the 1990s to buy non-performing loans from banks, helping to revive the state-owned finance industry. Such asset management companies expanded into banking, insurance, real estate finance and other fields.
Lai was accused of squandering public money, illegally organising banquets, engaging in sexual dealings with multiple women and taking bribes, the anti-corruption agency said in 2018.
Investigators seized hundreds of millions of yuan in cash from Lai’s properties, the Chinese business news magazine Caixin reported in 2018.
Lai was one of hundreds of officials at government agencies, state companies and the military who have been detained in an anti-corruption crackdown launched in 2012.
Other senior officials snared in the crackdown include a former head of China’s insurance regulator.
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