Defiant former Chinese oil firm boss denies series of corruption charges
Tao Yuchun rejects accusations of abuse of power, embezzlement and taking bribes at his trial in Zhuhai, but admits seeking illegal gains for his relatives
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 14 April, 2015, 4:46pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 14 April, 2015, 5:29pm
Agence France-Presse in Beijing
Tao Yuchun has made a rare guilty plea at his trial. The vast majority of trials in China lead to convictions. Photo: SCMP Pictures
A former senior executive at China’s largest oil producer has denied most of the corruption charges at his trial, state-run media reported, a rare example of defiance in a country where almost all criminal defendants are convicted.
Tao Yuchun, the ex-president of a gas subsidiary at state-owned China National Petroleum Corp, was accused of abuse of power, embezzlement, taking bribes and seeking illegal gains for relatives and friends totalling about 300 million yuan (HK$380 million), the Southern Metropolis News said.
He only admitted the final charge, but rejected all the others at his trial on Monday in Zhuhai in the southern province of Guangdong, the newspaper reported.
Tao smiled at his friends and relatives in the gallery at the start of the hearing and addressed the court throughout in the dialect of Shandong, his native province in eastern China, rather than using official Mandarin, the newspaper added.
His performance was a marked contrast to the norm in China, where the conviction rate is 99.93 per cent and most defendants adopt a co-operative and compliant attitude in court as they seek to secure leniency in exchange for confession.
Chinese courts are closely controlled by the Communist Party, as is reporting on sensitive trials, and a guilty verdict for Tao is effectively a certainty.
Jiang Jiemin, China’s former state assets chief and an ex-chairman of China National Petroleum Corp, confessed to corruption at his trial on Monday, television pictures showed.
Jiang is regarded as an ally of Zhou Yongkang, himself a former oil chief at the state-run company who went on to become China’s hugely powerful internal security czar. He was charged with bribery and abuse of power this month.
President Xi Jinping has vowed to oust corrupt officials all the way from low-level “flies” to high-ranking “tigers” amid fears that graft could threaten the party’s hold on power.
But in the absence of systemic reforms, critics say the drive is open to abuse for internal political ends.
Zhou and a host of his followers have been detained and stripped of their party membership since 2013, amid official media allegations of an “oil faction” in the party.
