A key player in the Shanghai corruption scandal has been sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.

Wang Weigong, a former secretary in Shanghai's Party committee and in the General Office of State Council, was paid bribes of nearly 13 million yuan ($1.9 million) between 1995 and 2006, Changchun Intermediate People's Court in Jilin province said last Friday.

Businessman Zhang Rongkun, the former chairman of Fuxi Investment and Feidian Investment, paid about 70 percent of that money. The rest was collected from seven companies and individuals. Wang and Zhang were among several high-profile people caught up in Shanghai's biggest financial scandal, which involved the embezzlement of 3.7 billion yuan of the city's pension funds for use on highway construction and property development.

Zhang - ranked 16th on the Forbes China Rich List in 2005 - has been sentenced to 19 years imprisonment after a court found he paid 30 million yuan in bribes to civil servants for access to billions of yuan in state assets. The court said Zhang asked Wang to help his business purchase a State-owned road construction company in January 2002.

Wang then invited Shanghai Party chief Chen Liangyu to dine with Zhang.

With Chen's assistance, Zhang purchased a controlling stake in the company for about 300 million yuan less than the true value of the shares.

Zhang later funded highway construction projects with money from the social security fund.

The court said Wang received six bribes from Zhang when he was in Shanghai and eight more when he worked for the State Council. He was arrested in July 2007.

The court sentenced Wang to death because of the large amount of bribes he received.

He was given a two-year reprieve because he provided information to investigators and was sorry for his actions, the court said.

He did not appeal his sentence. The scandal first broke in 2006 and Shanghai courts began to hear cases against officials in June 2007. Officials say all embezzled funds have been recovered. Chen has been sentenced to 18 years for his role in the scandal.

(China Daily April 21, 2009)