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Flies and Tigers | 抓蝇打虎

Goods confiscated at night to avoid public outrage

Source: Agencies | August 11, 2015, Tuesday | Print Edition

A FORMER senior officer with the People’s Liberation Army was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by a military court yesterday, China’s Defense Ministry announced.

A former lieutenant general who had been deputy director of the military’s powerful logistics department, Gu Junshan was sentenced for crimes including bribery, abuse of power and misuse of public funds, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

The reprieve usually means the death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment after two years’ good behavior.

Gu was charged in 2014 on suspicion of selling hundreds of military positions.

“The military court determined the amount of bribes Gu Junshan accepted was huge, the harmful consequences especially grave, the amount of misappropriated public funds immense, and the details of his abuse of power especially serious,” an unnamed military court official said in a separate statement. The case was heard behind closed doors to safeguard “military secrets,” the official said.

Gu’s case was linked to that of Xu Caihou, a former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission who the government said had confessed to taking “massive” bribes in exchange for help in promotions. Xu died of cancer in March.

“This serious trial was a contest determining whether justice or evil will triumph,” a ministry commentary said yesterday.

“For leading cadres at all levels, this is a profound warning to remember that the ‘perks’ given to you today are just the ‘bomb’ that will destroy you tomorrow.”

Gu has been under investigation since four truckloads of plunder including gold statues and cases of high-end liquor were removed from one of his mansions in central China’s Henan Province last year.

Gu loved gold, especially gold statues of Buddha, though he preferred receiving ground up gold rather than gold bars when taking bribes, according to Phoenix Weekly, a magazine run by Hong Kong broadcaster Phoenix Television.

When offering gifts, he would fill up a Mercedes with hundreds of bars of gold and then simply hand over the car keys to the recipient, the magazine said.

Caixin magazine said military investigators catalogued the goods at one of Gu’s mansions during the day but carried out the confiscation at night to avoid being seen by members of the public who might become outraged.

“About two dozen military policemen in plainclothes queued up in two lines, facing each other. Boxes and boxes of special-order Moutai were transported to the two military trucks parked at the door,” Caixin wrote, describing the scene on January 12 last year.

Gu secured professional favors for members of his family, including his brother Gu Xianjun, who was arrested last August for bribery, Caixin said.

Gu lined his pockets through the kickbacks he had received over the transfer of military-owned land in premium locations throughout China.

In Shanghai, Gu received a 6 percent kickback for a plot of military land that fetched more than 2 billion yuan (US$330 million), and in his hometown of Puyang his family was known for land grabs and real estate developments, Caixin said.

His family built seven riverside villas in Puyang, but the residence best-known locally is the general’s house on a piece of land seized from a local collective, the magazine said.

Modeled after the Imperial Palace in Beijing, the house has two guarding elephants, a fountain, a garden with covered corridors, and living quarters for butlers and servants.

Quoting villagers hired to build the house, Caixin said Gu hired artisans from the Palace Museum to paint the interiors.

Caixin said Gu was particularly skillful in courting goodwill among military bosses.

His years in the logistics department coincided with a massive buildup in barracks and housing.

Gu’s wife Zhang Suyan was commissar of the Puyang public security bureau but mainly worked in Beijing for the city’s liaison office. Her task was to receive visitors from Puyang or intercept any locals who went to Beijing to make complaints.

On October 2, 2012, she is said to have ordered guards at the office to disperse people complaining about land being seized by Gu’s family for real estate development.

The family developed businesses and real estate properties around Puyang including high-end office buildings, shopping malls and luxury residences.

Gu’s younger brother Gu Xianjun was Party secretary of Puyang’s Dongbaicang Village between 2001 and 2010. It’s claimed he sold almost all the village’s farmland to developers.

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