Ex-official dealt life term for taking bribes

The former vice president of the state-owned Shanghai Lingang Economic Development Group was sentenced yesterday to life imprisonment for taking bribes in excess of 8.1 million yuan (US$1.28 million).

Dai Weizhong, 49, was the group's vice president and the board chairman of Shanghai Lingang Construction and Development Co between 2004 and 2011.

Dai used his position to help Zhu Shuizhong, the head of a construction company, win 18 construction projects with a gross contract value of over 397 million yuan, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court ruled.

Prosecutors said Zhu affiliated his company to Baoye Construction Group and Changye Group in east China's Zhejiang Province and used the big names to bid for Lingang's projects because his own company was unqualified.

In return, Zhu gave Dai more than 8 million yuan in kickbacks in the form of cash, apartments, overseas travel, iPads and Sony laptop computers. He also paid for Dai's son's summer camp in the United States, prosecutors said.

Dai also helped a construction subcontractor to win projects valued at more than 200 million yuan and received US$20,000 in commission to send his son to study abroad, according to prosecutors.

Dai was sacked from his post last June after authorities received a report and launched an investigation into the bribery case. They found Dai owned eight high-end apartments across the city, two of them paid for with the bribe money.

Dai said he did not declare the six other apartments to the government because all these properties were purchased before he took the post and "it will have a bad impact on a leader."

Dai also argued he did not take bribes but borrowed 7.8 million yuan from Zhu to buy the two apartments on Furongjiang Road in 2005 and 2006.

Dai told the court he had made a bad investment in the stock market and failed to return the money. But prosecutors said Dai invested 92 million yuan after the index dropped sharply between October 2007 and May 2008, which indicated Dai was actually making a good buy at the market bottom.

The court heard Dai returned 7.8 million yuan in principal and another 1.05 million yuan in interest to Zhu after a talk with discipline authorities in August 2010.

Dai was arrested by the Shanghai People's Procuratorate on June 28 last year.

The court rendered its verdict with consideration that Dai confessed to other bribes that prosecutors did not know about. All his ill-gotten money has been confiscated.