Former president of Chinese state company sentenced to death

Mar 26 2002

BEIJING - The former president of a Chinese state company has been sentenced to death on charges of embezzling nearly dlrs 9 million, a court official said Tuesday.

Li Yaoqi of the Hong Kong-Macau International Group was sentenced Monday in Haikou, capital of the southern island province of Hainan, said the official, who would give only his surname, Ye.

 Li was convicted by the Haikou Intermediate People's Court of stealing more than 70 million yuan (dlrs 8.6 million) in 1992-97, according to Ye.

 Death sentences in China are automatically appealed, but usually are upheld and quickly carried out.

 Li's case adds to hundreds of death sentences handed out in a years-long crackdown on rampant graft by government officials and executives of state companies.

 Five other defendants received penalties ranging from three years in prison to a suspended death sentence, Ye said. They included three former deputy board directors of the Hainan International Trust and Investment Co., the investment arm of the provincial government.

 Officials have disclosed little information about Li's case. A 1999 report by the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao newspaper said Li's company was heavily in debt and had defaulted on bank loans.

 According to the newspaper, 54 percent of the shares in the company was were held by the Hong Kong branch of the state Xinhua News Agency and 22 percent by the overseas investment arm of the state-owned Bank of China.