Former Guangzhou Party chief gets life sentence

Wan Qingliang, former secretary of the Guangzhou committee of the Communist Party of China, in Guangdong province, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday for accepting bribes.

Wan has been stripped of his political rights for life, with all his personal property and wealth confiscated, according to the ruling by the Intermediate People's Court of Nanning in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

The court found that Wan sought profits for others by taking advantage of his posts and accepted bribes totaling over 111 million yuan ($16.5 million) from 2000 to 2014.

Wan became Guangzhou's Party chief in 2011, after serving as Party chief of Jiaoling county in Jieyang and vice-governor of Guangdong.

He was also an alternate member of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC before an announcement in 2014 that he was under investigation.

As Party chief, Wan was the city's most senior official, outranking the mayor of Guangzhou, one of China's export hubs.

Meanwhile, Wang Min, a former senior member of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to a court statement Friday. The ruling said Wang had accepted bribes worth about 18 million yuan between 2004 and May 2014, either by himself or through relatives, according to Ningbo City Intermediate People's Court in Zhejiang province.

The court ruled that 2 million yuan of his personal property should be confiscated.

During his time in office, Wang served as deputy secretary-general then secretary-general of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee, head of the provincial committee's publicity department, and Party chief of Ji'nan, capital city of Shandong.