Probe finds no evidence of corruption

The municipal government's discipline office announced Tuesday that it has determined that government officials in Minhang district did not manipulate land prices or involve themselves in a project to demolish a family's private home and museum.

The Shanghai Office for Correcting Illegitimate Practices of All Trades opened an investigation after receiving an online complaint from Liu Wenhao, a district resident who accused five officials and their relatives of profiting off the forced demolition of his parents' home and his family's private museum, according to a post on the office's microblog.

Liu said that the district government demolished his home without warning in April 2012, at which time his parents were taken from their home and isolated in an unidentified house without a bathroom for more than 30 hours, the United Morning Post reported last month.

Demolition crews tore down the family's house and the family's private museum, which together sat on 5,380 square meters of land, the Legal Daily reported. The museum had been opened for 20 years.

The demolition took place one day after the family signed a contract with a real estate developer, Xiangyu Real Estate Co, in which the company agreed to pay the family 78 million yuan ($12.61 million) for the properties.

The Legal Daily reported that the wife and son of Wang Shengyang, a senior official on the Standing Committee of the Minhang District People's Congress, had held shares of the company.

After the demolition, the family did not receive the compensation from the developer. The Minhang district government also ruled that the family was not entitled to administrative compensation from the forced demolition, even though Minhang District People's Court had ruled that the district's housing authority was only permitted to demolish the family's home, not the museum, the Legal Daily reported.

The district government later sold the developer the rights to 70,000 square meters of land that included the Liu family's former property for 13 million yuan, the Legal Daily reported.

At that price, the developer bought the land for about 155 yuan per square meter of residential floor space, the Legal Daily reported.

The average price of an apartment in that area is currently about 15,000 yuan per square meter, according to the real estate channel of sina.com.

Liu's family stated that they suffered a loss of 268 million yuan from the demolition, including lost museum earnings.

The discipline office determined that Wang's wife and son had illegally held shares in Xiangyu Real Estate, but they corrected their mistake when they sold their entire stakes in 2008. It also reported that it found no evidence that Wang helped the developer profit or that government officials intervened to adjust the land price in the case. In addition, the office found no evidence that officials had a hand in the demolition.

Liu complained that the office's report did not specify the real names of the other officials and their spouses.

His family has sued the Minhang district government in Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court. The court will hear the case later this month, the United Morning Post reported.