Former China
Mobile Exec Sentenced to Death for Corruption
By Damon Poeter PCMag.com July 22, 2011
A former high-ranking executive at China Mobile has
been sentenced to death for accepting more than $1.15 million in bribes while
working at state-run telecommunications companies from 1994 to 2009, according to reports citing China's state-run Xinhua news agency.
Zhang Chunjiang
served as a vice chairman at China
Mobile. His
sentencing Friday by a court in the northern Chinese province of Hebei included a two-year
reprieve before his execution. That means Zhang's sentence could be commuted to
life in prison for good behavior, according to the Xinhua
report.
The news agency said Zhang had confessed to
taking bribes during his time spent as a deputy director the Liaoning Provincial Postal administration, as general
manager of China Netcom Group, and while working for China Mobile, the world's
largest mobile phone operator by subscriber base.
China has executed
other top officials at state-run agencies and companies for corruption in
recent years, including the head of the country's Food and Drug Administration,
and a pair of vice-mayors who were executed this week, according to The New York Times.
A former chairman of Chinese oil company Sinopec was also recently sentenced to death with a
two-year reprieve, according to the paper.
Chinese authorities have recently been probing
the telecom industry, with several China Mobile executives under investigation
for corruption, according to Xinhua. Other
individuals being investigated for corruption include Internet mogul Zeng Liqing, a co-founder of Tencent.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388944,00.asp