China enhances crackdown on corruption: reports

The work reports of two Chinese judicial bodies, delivered to the top legislature Thursday, demonstrated that the authorities had stepped up anti-corruption campaign last year.[Special coverage]

According to the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), prosecutors probed 3,664 cases of graft, bribery and embezzlement of public funds involving more than 1 million yuan (164,000 U.S. dollars) last year. A total of 4,040 public servants at county level and above, including 589 at and above city level, were investigated.

A total of 55,101 people were investigated for duty-related crimes in 41,487 cases, an annual increase of 7.4 percent in the number of people, according to the report.

Prosecutors handled serious cases of 28 officials at provincial or ministerial levels and above, including Zhou Yongkang and Xu Caihou in accordance with the law last year, according to the report.

In addition, 7,827 bribers were prosecuted for criminal offenses, up 37.9 percent from the previous year.

The work report of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) showed that Chinese courts in 2014 convicted and punished 44,000 criminals in 31,000 cases of embezzlement and bribery, including severe cases such as Liu Tienan and Li Daqiu.

A total of 2,394 people were convicted for offering bribes last year, up 12.1 percent from the previous year. The two work reports also noted efforts of chasing corrupt officials who had fled overseas to escape legal punishment.

A total of 749 fugitive officials suspected of committing work-related crimes were captured last year, including 49 suspects from 17 countries and regions such as the United States and Canada, according to the SPP report.

Their illegal assets were recovered according to the law so that corrupt official could never gain any economic benefits, the report read.

The SPC was also participating in hunting down corrupt officials hiding overseas, its report said.

Authorities also pledged "zero tolerance" of judicial corruption which had raised public complaints these years.

Procuratorates investigated and punished 404 staff within their own system last year while 2,108 court officials were punished for violating disciplines and laws, according to the two reports, which vowed to "eradicate black sheep" in the judicial organs.