HOHHOT, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday executed Li Jianping, a former official in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, after convicting him of corruption, bribery, misappropriation of public funds, and collusion with a criminal syndicate.

The death sentence of Li, former secretary of the Party working committee of the Hohhot economic and technological development zone, was initially issued in September 2022 and upheld on appeal in August 2024.

Tuesday's execution followed the approval of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) and was carried out by an intermediate court in Inner Mongolia.

Li was convicted of amassing illicit wealth on a scale rarely seen among officials of his rank.

Despite holding relatively modest local government positions, he was found guilty of embezzling over 1.437 billion yuan (about 200 million U.S. dollars) of funds from state-owned enterprises, receiving gifts and money totaling more than 577 million yuan, and misappropriating over 1.055 billion yuan in public funds.

In addition, Li was convicted of enabling illegal operations by a criminal syndicate under his watch.

Li appealed the decision after the intermediate court sentenced him to death in 2022, with lifelong deprivation of political rights and confiscation of all assets, but the Higher People's Court of Inner Mongolia rejected his appeal in August.

Upon reviewing the case, the SPC ruled that Li's crimes were extremely severe, citing the exceptionally large amounts embezzled and received in bribes, the grave nature of the offenses, the widespread negative social impact and the immense harm to the state and public interests.

The SPC approved the decision of the Higher People's Court of Inner Mongolia to uphold the death penalty. Li was permitted to meet with his next of kin before the execution.

  • ButtBidet [he/him]
    ·
    7 days ago

    I'm actually a pretty anti capital punishment kinda person. But it's hard to complain with using this for those who steal from the people.

    • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
      ·
      7 days ago

      yeah the issues surrounding capital punishment mostly don't apply to rich people crimes. completely premeditated and not driven by poverty

    • imogen_underscore [it/its, she/her]
      ·
      6 days ago

      ultimate goal should be to not need to use it but a bourgeois state doing it is very different from a socialist state doing it

      • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        6 days ago

        Which civil crimes are deserving of death in your eyes?

        This is of course disregarding extremely heinous international crimes such as genocide, war crimes, etc.

        • rainpizza@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          6 days ago

          I have two examples that happened in Mexico:

          1. There was a corruption case where gov't officials stole the money that was going to be used to guarantee food security in the country. Those funds will have helped thousands of people in extreme poverty to have access to food. It is difficult to calculate how negative the impact from this was.

          2. There was a politician in Veracruz that stole millions from a fund that was used to buy medicine for children with cancer. However, it was not only that but the asshole provided distilled water instead of real chemotherapy(that he was supposed to buy with that fund) to those children. Not one news media or investigation have been done to calculate how many children died due to this asshole.

          From my perspective, these corrupt politicians betrayed our people and their damage contributed to an incalculable amount of deaths.

          • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            6 days ago

            You're correct, the legal system is divided into civil cases and criminal cases. However civil crimes refers to crimes committed by civilian citizens of a nation, so it excludes military justice systems and international crimes. So international human trafficking is an international crime, versus standard murder is just a civil crime.