China jails former oil executive for 20 years for corruption

Earlier on Monday, China National Petroleum Corporation’s (CNPC) former CEO and its biggest unit PetroChina (NYSE:PTR) chief, Jiang Jiemin, has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for graft which implies to charges of corruption and abuse of power.

With instruction and consent from political heavyweight Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, Jiang violated regulations by helping others in businesses, causing huge losses to the state, it added.

Before becoming China’s top security official, Mr Zhou was chairman of CNPC. President Xi Jinping has warned that rampant corruption threatens the survival of the ruling Communist Party and has waged a war on graft in the past three years that has felled scores of senior officials in the party, the government, the military and state-owned companies.

[Source]Some years before taking charge of China’s domestic security operations, Mr. Zhou was chairman of China National Petroleum Corp.-the company later headed by Mr. Jiang-and investigations into his allies marked the first step in a continuing investigation of China’s vast, state-controlled oil industry.

Li Chuncheng, former deputy party secretary of Sichuan Province, was sentenced in a different court to 13 years of jail time for bribery and abuse of power.

The court found that Jiang received 14 million yuan (US$2.2 million) in bribes between 2004 and 2013 to help others get construction contracts and job promotions. Like Mr. Jiang, Mr. Li worked for a time under Mr. Zhou, who served as party chief of Sichuan from 1999 to 2002. Mr Jiang’s confiscated assets are worth one million yuan (€140,000).

Guo Yongxiang was a Zhou Yongkang aide from Sichuan. He was arrested in December 2012 and his detention helped in building the case against Zhou.

Prosecutors alleged Wang, also former general manager of the Daqing oilfield, took advantage of his posts to seek profit, while he allegedly asked for and accepted a substantial amount in bribes.