China’s top prosecutor has ordered the arrest of Hu Yifeng, former president of the high court in North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region on charges of accepting bribes.
An investigation by the country’s top anti-graft agency concluded that Hu violated party rules to take gifts and bribes, traded power for money, and breached regulations on the selection and appointment of officials.
Hu, a former secretary of the court’s leading party members group, was expelled from the Communist Party in September after coming under official investigation in April.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection’s (CCDI) investigation also found Hu took advantage of his position to help others seek benefits in case handling and project contracting and accepted “a huge amount of money and valuables” in return, according to a September statement from the authority, which added that Hu “wantonly interfered in judicial activities” and “seriously undermined judicial credibility.”
The CCDI has handed the case over to prosecutors, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate said in a statement Monday.
Hu, 68, became the president of the High People’s Court of Inner Mongolia in January 2011 and served in the post for seven years before retiring in January 2018. He is one of numerous officials in the political and legal system in Inner Mongolia to fall under investigation for graft in recent years.
Former police chief of the autonomous region Ma Ming received a life sentence in February after confessing to taking 158 million yuan ($22 million) in bribes in May 2021.
Xing Yun, former vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Inner Mongolia, pleaded guilty in August 2019 to accepting bribes worth 449 million yuan, a record sum for a provincial-level official caught up in Beijing’s sweeping anti-graft campaign since late 2012.
In June 2019, the former party chief of Inner Mongolia’s capital city Hohhot, Yun Guangzhong, was placed under investigation on suspicion of corruption.
Contact reporter Kelly Wang (jingzhewang@caixin.com) and editor Jonathan Breen (jonathanbreen@caixin.com)
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