China’s Communist party has expelled its former security chief Zhou Yongkang months after placing him under investigation for “serious disciplinary violations,” the state news agency Xinhua has reported.
Xinhua said members of the standing committee of the politburo, the country’s highest governing body, decided on Friday to revoke Zhou’s party membership and transfer his case and “relevant clues” to China’s judicial authorities “to deal with them in accordance with the law”.
State media has made little mention of Zhou, 72, since July when Xinhua announced he was under investigation for “serious disciplinary violations,” shorthand for corruption. Anti-corruption authorities had been tightening the net around Zhou for months, detaining his family members and protegés.
Zhou retired in 2012, but spent the preceding decade as China’s third most-powerful man, heading the party’s political and legislative affairs committee and controlling the country’s courts, police and paramilitary.
Zhou was last seen in public in October 2013. He is the highest-level figure in the party’s history to be investigated for corruption.
“Upon investigation, Zhou Yongkang seriously violated the party’s political, organisational and confidential discipline,” Xinhua said. “He used his position to give illegal benefits to many people, and took bribes directly and via his family members; abused his position to help his family members, mistresses and friends gain huge profits through business activities at the cost of state assets; leaked party and state secrets; severely breached regulations of corruption by taking a great amount of assets belonging to other people; committed adultery with a number of women, and traded money and power for sexual advantages.”
His actions have “greatly harmed the party’s image,” Xinhua continued, “and have caused great losses to the party and the people”.
