BEIJING (AP) – The former head of a Chinese state-owned asset management company was executed on Friday on charges of bribery in an extraordinarily severe sentence for a recent corruption case.
Lai Xiaomin of China Huarong Asset Management Co., was among thousands of officials captured in a protracted anti-vaccination campaign led by President Xi Jinping. Others, including China’s former insurance regulator, have been jailed.
The 58-year-old Lai was killed by a court in Tianjin, east of Beijing, the government announced.
The Second Interim People’s Court in Tianjin ruled in January that the death was justified because Lai had taken ‘extremely enormous’ bribes to make investments, offer building contracts, help with promotions and grant other favors.
Lai asked for or raised 1.8 billion yuan ($ 260 million) over a decade, the court said. One bribe is said to exceed 600 million yuan ($ 93 million). He was also convicted of embezzling more than 25 million yuan ($ 4 million) and starting a second family while still married to his first wife.
Lai endangered national financial security and financial stability, a comment on the TV website said.
The death penalty “was his own responsibility, and he deserved it,” read the comments.
Most death sentences imposed by Chinese courts are suspended for two years and are usually converted. Death penalty without the chance of postponement is rare.
Huarong is one of four entities set up in the 1990s to buy non-performing loans from government banks. They have expanded into banking, insurance, real estate finance and other fields.
Lai was investigated by the ruling Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog in 2018 and expelled from the party later that year.
Lai is also accused of squandering public money, arranging banquets illegally, having sexual intercourse with several women and accepting bribes, the 2018 anti-corruption agency said.
Investigators seized hundreds of millions of yuan (ten million dollars) in cash on Lai’s properties, Chinese business magazine Caixin reported in 2018.
Originally published