A court in central China's Hunan Province on Friday sentenced a former official of the province to 12 years in prison for corruption and abuse of power.
The Chenzhou City Intermediate People's Court also deprived Ma Yong, former deputy Secretary General of the Hunan provincial committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), of his personal assets of one million yuan (150,000 U.S. dollars) after he was convicted of accepting bribes of up to 3.68 million yuan.
According to the court, Ma accepted 100,000 yuan and a 100-g gold bar valued at 33,000 yuan from relatives of defendants in murder cases in 2012 and 2013, when Ma served as the CPC chief of Yiyang City, Hunan. In exchange, Ma asked court personnel to give light sentences to the defendants, the court said.
He was also found to have arranged for 5.8 million yuan in land transfer revenue to be returned to property developers, causing great loss to the country, the court said.
Ma admitted to the crimes and confessed in court.
