China punishes officials for illegal sentence reductions

A total of 252 justice officials were punished last year for their roles in illegally granting parole or shortening prison terms for convicts, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) said on Monday.

Foul play was found in 213 cases during a campaign that lasted from March to December of 2014 targeting justice officials who abused their power to grant parole, commutation of sentences or temporary discharge on disease, preganancy or other conditions, according to an SPP statement.

There has been a public outcry in China over recent years against those rich and powerful convicts who often stayed much shorter in prison than their sentences on faked good behavior or health conditions.

In one high-profile case that brought judicial corruption into the spotlight, Zhang Hai, former board chairman of a Chinese beverage giant, initially was sentenced to 15 years in 2007 for misappropriation of corporate funds. Zhang used illegal means, including bribing prison and judicial officials, to have his sentence cut by five years in a second court trial and to have his prison term further reduced by more than four years while serving the sentence.

The SPP had focused its investigations on convicts who were former officials, members of criminal gangs, and who committed financial crimes.

Of the 252 persons, 111 were punished for taking bribes, 66 for frauds, 29 for dereliction of duty, 17 for bribery, nine for abusing of power, the SPP said. The remaing 20 persons fall into other categories. It did not elaborate on the punishment.

The SPP vowed to strengthen supervision of sentence review procedures, especially review of convicts' good behavior and health conditions. Endi