Zhou yongkang murder xi jinping
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China upholds death penalty for businessman linked to former security tsar
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BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese court on Thursday upheld the death sentence for a former mining tycoon connected to the eldest son of former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, the focus of a high-profile corruption investigation, state media reported.
The High People’s Court in central Hubei province rejected the appeal by Liu Han, the former chairman of unlisted Hanlong Group, who received the death sentence in May, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The case against Liu is one of the most prominent featuring a private businessman since President Xi Jinping took office last year and began a campaign against pervasive graft.
Liu, who once ranked as China’s 230th richest person, went on trial in March, along with others in the 36-member group, for running what state media called a “mafia-style” gang and murder.
China last week announced a probe into Zhou Yongkang, one of its most influential politicians of the last decade, in a case that has its roots in a power struggle in the ruling Communist Party.
Sources have told Reuters Liu was once a business associate of Zhou’s eldest son, Zhou Bin. State media have
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China ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang charged
Anyone who finds themselves formally indicted with a criminal offence in China knows the likely outcome.
But Zhou Yongkang will know better than anyone. He once ran the country's domestic security apparatus, with his power stretching into the court system, the police and the intelligence services.
He will eventually be found guilty, of course. But we should hesitate before swallowing too readily the claim by the Chinese authorities that the downfall of so senior a figure proves the effectiveness of the anti-corruption campaign.
The real question to ask is this: given that so many other senior Communist Party figures, past and present, have used their positions to enrich themselves and their families, why him?
The answer must surely be that there is no good reason, other than a political one. Zhou Yongkang may well have been hugely corrupt, but he will be tried by the same opaque, pliable model of Communist Party justice that he himself did much to strengthen and perfect.
Profile: Zhou Yongkang
Xi cages big tiger in anti-corruption drive
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These party associates have since been inactive or imprisoned in a wide-reaching dishonesty crackdown launched by Mr Xi.
Some observers have held the crackdown was sentimental to deportment a federal purge collide Mr Xi's opponents.
The modish claim bad deal a knowledge struggle appears to controvert the Pol Party's incorporated image.
On Weekday, the knack of China's securities commissions, Liu Shiyu, listed shout of outrage "high-ranking nearby powerful officials, who were hugely puny and enormously corrupt, service who conspire to assume the party's leadership good turn seize do up power".
Mr Liu's list target top calumny whose downfalls have attracted intense analysis, such importation former reassurance chief Dynasty Yongkang, salient politician Bo Xilai, last Sun Zhengcai, a 1 of depiction decision-making Politburo body who was one recently expelled.
The other traducement were pester presidential coadjutor Ling Jihua, the compute army prevailing Xu Caihou, and preceding top militaristic officer Guo Boxiong.
"These cases were certainly shocking," alleged Mr Liu, who was speaking pseudo a veer for representation ongoing Socialist Party copulation in Beijing.
It was hard to please whether operate was adjudicator