Ex-chinese justice minister receives death sentence over $16m bribe

A former Minister of Justice in China, Fu Zhenghua, has sentenced to death by the country’s court for corruption involving $16 million, with a two-year reprieve.
Fu, 67, was found guilty by the Intermediate People’s Court of Changchun in northeast China’s Jilin Province, according to AAnews.
From the court ruling, the death sentence can be commuted after two years in prison.
Fu, who was the Justice Minister from March 2018 to April 2020, was accused of “taking advantage” of his position between 2005 and 2021, including accepting bribes totaling more than 117 million yuan (approximately $16.76 million) and “bending the law for personal gain.” 
According to the report, the court revoked Fu’s political rights for life and seized all of his personal belongings.
“After the two-year reprieve for his death sentence, Fu’s sentence can be commuted to life in prison in accordance with the law, but no further reduction or parole shall be given to him,” according to the court’s decision, as reported by the Chinese public broadcaster CGTN.
The court found that Fu had concealed evidence involving a suspected serious crime committed by his brother Fu Weihua while serving as head of the Beijing public security bureau between 2014 and 2015. 
“This concealment allowed Fu Weihua to avoid prosecution for a long time,” the court stated in its verdict.
“The sum of bribes Fu had taken was huge, and he committed particularly serious crimes, which caused a heavy loss to the interests of the state and people and also had a particularly bad social impact,” it added. 
However, the court noted that Fu who was assigned to the Committee on Social and Legal Affairs of the National Committee of the CPPCC after having served as Justice minister last year, received a “lenient sentence” as he “confessed to all his crimes and pled guilty during the investigation, provided clues for important cases, and had been cooperative in returning his illegal gains.”