China sentences former official to death penalty for accepting bribes worth $325 million

A Chinese court has sentenced former senior official Yang Youlin to death after convicting him of accepting more than 2.2 billion yuan ($325 million) in bribes over three decades, in one of the country's biggest corruption cases in recent years. 

The 69-year-old served in several key positions in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, between 1993 and 2023. Yang used his official positions to help individuals and companies secure engineering contracts, land transfers and financing approvals in exchange for massive sums of money and other valuables, according to the BBC.

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Besides bribery, Yang was also found guilty of embezzlement, abuse of power and money laundering. The court ruled that the scale of his crimes, the financial losses caused to the state and the social impact of his actions justified the death sentence. Authorities also ordered the confiscation of all his illegally obtained assets.

The case is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's long-running anti-corruption campaign, which has targeted thousands of officials across the country's political, military and financial sectors. The campaign has resulted in numerous senior officials being investigated, prosecuted and handed severe punishments, including death sentences with reprieve in major corruption cases.

China imposes some of the world's toughest penalties for corruption, particularly in cases involving exceptionally large sums or abuse of high public office. While death sentences for corruption are often issued with a two-year reprieve that can later be commuted to life imprisonment if the convict demonstrates good behaviour, courts reserve the harshest punishments for the most serious offences.

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Although China has some of the world's toughest anti-corruption laws, death sentences for white-collar crimes are relatively rare and are generally reserved for the most serious cases involving extraordinarily large sums of money, extensive abuse of public office, or severe damage to the state's interests. Courts typically reserve immediate death sentences for cases they consider exceptionally grave, making such punishments unusual even in China's aggressive anti-corruption campaign.