China hands Tibet official suspended death sentence over $50 mn in bribes

BEIJING: The former Communist Party head of Tibet was handed a suspended death sentence on Wednesday for taking bribes worth almost $50 million, a court in China said.Wu Yingjie, who served as party secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region from 2016 to 2021, illegally accepted bribes totalling more than 343 million yuan ($47.8 million), an intermediate court in Beijing said in a statement on WeChat.The court said his crimes were "particularly serious, the social impact particularly vile" and caused "particularly heavy losses" for the country and people.President Xi Jinping has overseen a wide-ranging campaign against official corruption since coming to power more than a decade ago, with critics saying it also serves as a way to purge political rivals.The court said Wu used his official positions in the region stretching back to 2006 to give companies and individuals help on contracts and business operations.Wu was given a two-year reprieve after he pleaded guilty and confessed details of his actions that were previously unknown to authorities, the court said.Suspended death sentences are typically converted to life imprisonment if the convict commits no further crimes during the reprieve period.Wu was expelled from the party in December over "serious violations of discipline", a common euphemism in China for corruption.

He was assigned to Tibet's department of education after graduating from university and rose through the ranks for about two decades.United Nations experts have raised alarm at Chinese government policies aimed at assimilating Tibetan people culturally, religiously and linguistically through the schools system.The US Treasury Department sanctioned Wu in 2022 over human rights violations in Tibet.