The ruling was handed down by the Intermediate People's Court of Nanchang City, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province, in a first-instance trial held Tuesday morning.

In that ruling, Han was deprived of his political rights for three years and was confiscated of 1.65 million yuan (US$198,795) in illegal earnings.

Court investigations found that when Han was assigned by the Jiangxi Provincial People's Government to be deputy commissioner and later commissioner of the Ganzhou Prefectural Administrative Office, he accepted bribes from others worth more than 400,000 yuan (US$48,192) for pursuing benefits on their behalf.

During his tenure in Ganzhou, Han also helped his mistress's company increase business by violating relevant state regulations to allow her company to engage in business related to remodeling of imported cars without legal documents and acquisition of number plates for the remodeled imported cars, which caused more than 13.04 million yuan (US$1.57 million) in tariff losses to the state.

After Han's detainment, the local procuratorate seized and froze Han's assets, including 1.18 million yuan (US$142,169) in cash. His property and expenditure obviously exceeded his legal earnings. He could not clarify the legal source of 1.25 million yuan (US$150,602) in earnings.

Han was also expelled from the Party and thrown out of government service in January this year.

In a separate case, Zhou Xuehua, the principal culprit of giving bribes to Hu Changqing, the former deputy governor of Jiangxi Province, was also sentenced today by the same court to life imprisonment for being found guilty of four crimes including giving bribes and embezzlement.

Hu Changqing was executed on March 8 last year for taking bribes totaling 5.4 million yuan (US$650,602).

According to the verdict for Zhou, he was also deprived of his political rights for life and confiscated of all his personal property.

(Xinhua News Agency 07/04/2001)