A former senior Communist official and ally of ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang was sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption. (Reuters)
A former senior Communist official and ally of ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang was sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption today, a court said.
Li Chongxi, who headed a political advisory body in Sichuan province, one of Zhou's powerbases, was convicted of taking bribes of about 11 million yuan ($1.7 million).
Assets worth one million yuan were confiscated from him, the Nanchang People's Intermediate Court said on a verified social media account, as was a digital recorder he had used.
The court did not explain the significance of the recorder.
Li is the latest in a long string of Zhou's former allies to be jailed under President Xi Jinping's sweeping anti-corruption drive, which some have described as a political purge.
Zhou Yongkang accumulated vast power as China's security chief, rising to become a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the Communist Party's most powerful body, and was the highest-ranked politician brought down in the campaign.
He was sentenced to life in prison in June on a barrage of charges that included taking bribes and "leaking state secrets".
At least five of Zhou's ex-allies faced court in a single week last month, including Jiang Jiemin, former head of the commission that oversees China's state-owned companies. Jiang was sentenced to 16 years.
Critics say Xi's anti-corruption drive is open to factionalism and the Communist Party has failed to introduce systemic reforms to prevent graft, such as public disclosure of assets.
Also today, former senior Hunan province official Yang Baohua was given 11 years for corruption, the Guilin Intermediate People's Court said on social media.