By staff reporters Luo Changping and Zhang Yingguang

Liu Zhihua appeared worn down and older than his 59 years when he stood before the Hengshui Intermediate People’s Court for sentencing October 18.

The former vice mayor of Beijing had just been convicted on the bribe-taking charges pending against him since his sacking 28 months earlier.

Prosecutors said Liu accepted about 6.97 million yuan in bribes while serving as vice mayor from 1997 to 2006 and director of the management committee of Zhongguancun Science Park from 2001 to 2006.

The more than 100 people attending the court hearing included members of the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and Organization Department, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, as well as political and justice officials from Hebei Province.

Cui Jinbo, deputy chief procurator of Hengshui Procuratorate, headed the prosecution. The defense team included Beijing lawyers Mo Shaoping and Feng Xiaoling.

Liu’s wife Zhang Shulan and their son Zhang Wei were in the audience as well to share the shame as the court ruled that most of the bribes were pocketed by Liu and his mistress, Wang Jianrui.

Liu admitted a relationship with Wang, and apologized to his wife and son during his final statement. Witnesses said Liu shed tears three times while recalling how he started his working life as a miner and rose to ministerial level official.

Liu was sentenced to death but given a two-year reprieve. The court stripped Liu of political rights, and all of his personal property was confiscated.

Liu has filed an appeal. Mo said his client was dissatisfied with the verdict for three reasons: He thinks the allegations were not based on fact; that the sentence should have been lighter because he confessed to crimes that investigators hadn’t uncovered; and that the court showed a lack of consideration for his family by confiscating his property.

The day after Liu’s trial ended, a separate trial began for his mistress on bribery charges.

Liu Zhihua, Wang Jianrui

Real Estate Payoffs

More than 90 percent of the bribes Liu accepted came from real estate developers, according to court documents. He also used his influence to obtain houses for his mistress and buy a home for his son at a discount.

Liu profited from military housing reform. According to the court, he received a diamond bangle worth 60,000 yuan and a diamond pendent worth 70,000 yuan from an Air Force contact for helping solve a veterans’ housing problem.

Liu also was charged with receiving US$ 7,000 from Mu Qiru, chairman of Beijing Zhaotai Property, in exchange for helping him launch the a development in the city’s western Zhongguancun area.

The court ruled Liu and Wang had sought 4 million yuan and a car worth more than 400,000 yuan from Hui Tieyong, chairman of Beijing Zhongrong, between 1999 and 2005, in exchange for their help. One separate occasion, the court found, Hui gave Liu US$ 6,000 and 2,000 euros.

Liu instructed Wang to ask Hui for the 4 million yuan payoff, and to have the money transferred from Beijing Zhongrong to Beijing Pengsen Co. as “investment funds.” Wang was the legal representative of Pengsen. Wang later confessed that she asked for a car for assisting in the Hui deal. She got a Buick.

Pengsen played a contracting role for major Beijing Olympics projects, including construction of an archery field, tennis courts and a hockey stadium. The firm also was involved in the construction of the Digital Beijing Building and Capital Museum.

Museum and Greenbelts

The largest bribe accepted by Liu and Wang, according to the court, was tied to the Capital Museum. A major cultural project worth 780 million yuan, the museum’s construction began in December 2001 after being approved by the State Council and National Development and Reform Commission.

Liu was put in charge of the project while Beijing Tianchuang Property, where Wang worked, created a Capital Museum Project Department and put her in charge.

The Beijing government sited the museum on land for an unfinished building called the Sanyi Mansion in the city’s Xuanwu District. The city paid 400 million yuan for the property to the State Administration of Machinery Industry. Sanyi was being built by Beijing Zhongrong Property before the developer ran out of money.

The court investigation found Liu received an emerald carving in 2004 worth 140,000 yuan from Dai Di, general manager of Beijing Yongtai Property Co., for Liu’s help in the city’s effort to create suburban greenbelts.

Yongtai also played prominently in the corruption case of the former head of Beijing’s Haidian District, Zhou Liangluo, who was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.

Investigators found Yongtai officials bribed Zhou and Liu for help with the greenbelt project, which focused on planting three ecological barriers in the suburbs, plains and mountains near Beijing. Liu led a group overseeing the project.

Through the greenbelt project in Haidian, Yongtai developed the residential projects Evergreen Village, Tongtai and Luxuriant City, helping the company increase assets from 450 million yuan in 2003 to 2 billion yuan three years later.

A government report later said the project seriously deviated from its intended plan by including commercial construction. Yongtai bribed Liu for his help in changing property use rules.

Another player in Liu’s corruption was Liu Jun, chairman of Beijing Taiyue Property. Liu and Liu Jun were former schoolmates.

From November 2001 to September ’02, the city official went to bat for the Beijing Science Park Culture Education Development Co. controlled by Liu Jun by securing development rights and a loan from the China Development Bank. Under normal circumstances, these development rights are only available to large, state-owned companies. Liu received kickbacks of US$ 3,000 and 50,000 yuan, as well as an antique Buddha statue worth 110,000 yuan.　

While Liu served as vice mayor, Taiyue Property grew from a small company into an integrated group of more than 20 firms with 10 billion yuan in total assets. Now, Liu Jun faces charges of bribery and tax evasion. His case is being reviewed for prosecution in Hebei.

Rise and Fall

Liu was born in April 1949 in Panjin, Liaoning Province. After graduating from high school in 1968, he took a job as a coal miner at the Beijing Jingxi Mine. He later married Zhang, who also worked at the mine.

In 1977, he enrolled at what is now the Capital University of Economics and Business. After studying labor economics, he graduated in 1981 and started a career at the Beijing Labor Bureau. He was promoted to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in October 1989.

Files indicate Liu met and fell in love with Wang, a married woman eight years younger, while he was director of the Comprehensive Planning Department in 1993. She divorced in 2001 to pursue their relationship.

For five years before assuming the vice mayor post in July 1999, Liu headed the Labor Bureau for Beijing and the city’s Xi Cheng District.

He took a key post at the Zhongguancun Science Park in May 2001, taking charge of construction, real estate, sports and traffic projects in the capital. That ranked him fourth in importance among the city’s nine vice mayors.

Liu also led the Beijing Housing Reform Leading Group and Beijing 2008 Project Construction Headquarters, both powerfully influential agencies for politics and business in the Chinese capital.

As vice mayor in charge of urban construction, files indicate, Liu acted as “frontline firefighter” for the Beijing Municipal Party Committee. He spearheaded the construction of the Xiaotangshan Infectious Hospital during the city’s SARS outbreak. He also handled the emergency surrounding a stampede at a 2004 festival near Beijing that claimed more than 30 lives.

After being removed from the post of Beijing vice mayor in June 2006, Liu was expelled from the Communist Party the following November and arrested by Hebei police.

Charges against Liu took added weight after the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued a July 2007 notice on bribery. It said relatives, spouses and extramarital lovers would be considered accomplices in bribery cases if they accepted money or property in exchange for helping others profit.

The prosecution focused on the Buick from Beijing Zhongrong, and the 4 million yuan registered capital held by Beijing Pengsen.

The defense claimed the car belonged to Beijing Zhongrong, although Wang was allowed to drive it, and that Liu did not receive 4 million yuan from the developer. The court rejected those arguments.

1 yuan = 14 U.S. cents