China hands life term to high-ranking intelligence official for graft

BEIJING: A Chinese court has handed life term in jail to a former high-ranking intelligence official for corruption, media reports said.

Ma Jian, previously the vice minister of the state security bureau, has been jailed for taking bribes, coercive business deals and insider trading.

The jailed official is one of the most senior security officials awarded jail sentence since the former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang was jailed for life in 2015 under corruption charges.

“Ma Jian’s behaviour constituted the crime of accepting bribes, forcing others to trade and insider trading,” the Dalian Intermediate People’s Court announced in a statement.

He was also ordered to pay a fine of more than $7.26m in penalty.

Ma used his political power to aid the business operations of a real estate billionaire.

The court said it reached the verdict on the grounds that Ma had taken an enormous amount of bribes.

Ma had received more than 100m yuan ($14.56m) in property for his work and earned nearly 5m yuan ($728,248) from trading stocks based on insider information, the statement added.

Ma pleaded guilty and has decided not to appeal, the court said in its statement, adding that his political rights have been revoked for life and all his personal assets confiscated.