Ex-Shanghai Party boss jailed for 18 years

By Guo Shipeng and Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court on Friday sentenced Shanghai's disgraced Communist Party boss Chen Liangyu to 18 years in prison on corruption charges, his lawyer and media said, the most senior official jailed for graft in a decade.

The No. 2 Intermediate People's Court in the northern port city of Tianjin found Chen guilty of taking bribes and abuse of power, Caijing magazine said on its Web site www.caijing.com.cn . He has been held since 2006.

Chen, 61, was mired in a snowballing scandal over the misuse of social security funds in China's financial hub. More than a dozen senior officials and businessmen have been implicated.

Chen, who lost his seat in the Communist Party's decision-making Politburo, is the highest-ranking Chinese official imprisoned for corruption in a decade. Chen Xitong was sacked as Beijing Party boss in 1995 and jailed for 16 years for graft in 1998.

One of Chen Liangyu's lawyers, Gao Zicheng, told Reuters that the court cleared Chen of a charge of dereliction of duty after accepting part of the defense Gao's team made on behalf of Chen.

The court also confiscated 300,000 yuan ($42,890) of Chen's assets, the official Xinhua news agency said.

"Chen Liangyu caused huge losses to public assets and the interests of the state and the people ... Given the fact that he showed repentance and returned all the bribes, leniency can be considered," Xinhua quoted the verdict as saying.

Gao said he would discuss with Chen whether to appeal against the sentence. Chen has 10 days to appeal.

There was a heavy police presence outside the court, a witness said.

State television showed footage of a grey-haired, bespectacled Chen standing in the courtroom wearing a dark suit when the verdict was announced -- his first public appearance since his downfall.

The Shanghai scandal broke in 2006 and involved the misappropriation of more than 30 billion yuan of the city's social security funds.

Chen was accused of illegally authorizing the lending of more than 2 billion yuan of the funds to two companies, Chinese media have reported. Prosecutors also accused him of taking 2.4 million yuan in bribes.

Chen, widely seen as a close associate of former president Jiang Zemin, pleaded not guilty to some of the charges during his March 25 trial, Gao said.

Chen had been enriching cronies by approving land for commercial development and granting personnel promotions in exchange for kick-backs during his 20 years in public office as Shanghai district chief, mayor and Party boss, media have said.

His son, younger brother and former secretary have also been implicated.