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BEIJING: China executed a former chief banker on Friday (January 29) accused of taking bribes worth $ 260 million, other forms of corruption and bigamy, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Lai Xiaomin, a former president of Huarong, one of China’s largest state-controlled asset management firms, was sentenced to death by a court in the northern city of Tianjin, CCTV said.
“The amount of bribes received by Lai Xiaomin was extremely large, the circumstances of the crime were particularly dire and the social impact was particularly severe,” CCTV quoted the Supreme People’s Court of China, which reviewed and approved the execution order.
The report does not specify how Lai was executed, but said that he was allowed to meet with close relatives before his death.
Chinese courts have a conviction rate of more than 99 percent, and it is extremely rare for a death sentence to be overturned. The number of executions carried out annually is considered a state secret.
The human rights group Amnesty International estimates that the country is the world’s leading executioner, with thousands of people executed and sentenced to death every year.
Lai was found guilty and sentenced earlier this month. The Tianjin court ruled that he had shown “extreme malicious intent” and abused his position to obtain the huge sum.
He was also convicted of bigamy after living with a woman “as husband and wife for long periods” outside of their marriage and fathering illegitimate children.
Lai is alleged to have used his post to embezzle more than 25 million yuan ($ 3.8 million) in public funds between 2009 and 2018.
His downfall began in April 2018 when investigators removed him from his job and stripped him of his position in the Communist Party.
Several senior party officials and businessmen have fallen from grace in recent years as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption purge.
