China's top procurator said Monday the number of official crime
cases is still large, and called on the country to continue its
crackdown on crimes like corruption and dereliction of duty.
In the first 11 months of this year, about 38,025 cases of
official crime were filed for investigation and prosecution by the
country's procuratorial organs, involving 41,797 suspects.
Of the total, 16,472 were serious embezzlement and
bribery-taking cases, accounting for 53.4 percent of the total, up
4.8 percent from the same period of last year.
About 2,603 officials at county and similar level or above have
been punished during this period.
Jia Chunwang, procurator-general of the Supreme People's
Procuratorate, released the statistics during a nationwide meeting
of procurators of the provincial-level people's procuratorates.
"Currently, the breeding ground for corruption still exists in
the country, and the official crime rate is still high. This
requires the country's procuratorial departments to put cracking
down on official crimes on the top of their work agenda," Jia
said.
"In future, major investigation efforts should be put on the
corruption cases committed by officials at county and similar level
or above; state assets embezzlement cases; power abuse cases and
cases causing losses of life and property," he stressed.
Jia urged all levels of procurators to pay more attention to
official crimes related to areas like finance, real estate,
construction project bidding, land-use right acquisition and
materials purchasing, which are all prone to crime.
"While stepping up efforts to investigate significant cases,
procuratorates at all levels should also pay attention to dealing
with grass-roots corruption cases, because they are closely related
to the people's fundamental interests," said Jia.
During the first 11 months of this year, China's procuratorates
at all levels approved the arrest of a total of 682,158 alleged
criminals, 41,797 of whom were accused of official crimes.
(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2003)