The mistress of a former air transport chief in east China's Zhejiang Province was charged for taking bribes, the first case of its kind in the province.

Wang Peiying, mistress of Zhao Zhanqi since the early 1990s, was charged by Huzhou municipal procuratorate on Wednesday with taking bribes of 550,000 yuan from a company bidding for a contract to build a new air terminal.

Wang took the money from the Longyuan Construction Group Co Ltd and helped the company beat 70 other bidders to win the contract in 1998, when Zhao was deputy head of the Xiaoshan airport construction headquarters.

She was charged according to directions handed down in early July by China's Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

The directive listed 10 new forms of bribery, including seeking profits through "specially-related persons", referring to close family members, relatives, lovers and people sharing joint interests.

Specially-related persons will be prosecuted as the accomplice in bribery cases, according to the directive.

If an official takes advantage of their post to benefit a person or group and the latter offers a sum of money to the official's specially-related person, it constitutes bribery no matter whether or not the official touches the money or not.

Chinese prosecutors have been aware the identification of a mistress usually constitutes a breakthrough in a corruption investigation.

However, previously it had been difficult to link the suspects with their lovers' actions, in court.

Zhao Zhanqi, 58, was sentenced to life in prison in July for receiving 6.2 million yuan in bribes from 1994 to 2006.

(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2007)