A court in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen sentenced a former judge to life imprisonment on Friday for taking bribes of more than 3.7 million yuan (US$507,000).

Pei Hongquan, former vice president of Shenzhen Municipal Intermediate People's Court, were convicted of taking the amount of bribes from an auction company and a real estate developer by taking advantage of his post, according to the verdict handed down by the intermediate people's court of Jiangmen city, Guangdong Province.

In addition, he was not able to clarify the sources of part of his personnel assets worth more than 6.8 million yuan, the court ruling said.

Pei was one of the five senior judges of the Shenzhen court that were detained in 2006 over bribery accusations.

The other four include court presidents Cai Xiaoling and Zhang Tinghua, retired judge Liao Zhaohui, and a court official Li Huili, said Bai Xinchao, procurator of the Shenzhen People's Procuratorate.

Bai said that the five had taken advantage of their posts to amass a huge amount of money through bribery over the past two or three years. However, he refused to disclose the amount of money involved as the investigation is ongoing.

(Xinhua News Agency January 5, 2008)