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China indicts Bo Xilai on corruption charges
July 25, 2013, 4:42 am

Bo, as a civil servant, ‘took the advantage of his position to seek profits for others and accepted an "extremely large amount" of money and properties’, said the indictment paper [Getty Images]

Bo ‘took the advantage of his position to seek profits for others and accepted an “extremely large amount” of money and properties’, said the indictment paper [Getty Images]

Chinese leader and former party chief of Chongqing Municipality, Bo Xilai has officially been indicted on Thursday.

Bo has been charged with bribery, embezzlement and power abuse, according to legal authorities in Jinan City in east China’s Shandong Province.

Bo is a former member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and his case has received considerable global media attention.

Bo ‘took the advantage of his position to seek profits for others and accepted an “extremely large amount” of money and properties’, said the indictment paper.

He also “embezzled a huge amount of public money and abused his power, seriously harming the interests of the state and people”, the document said.

Prosecutors have already questioned Bo on Thursday.

China has initiated a huge crackdown on corruption in public office, with the new Chinese President Xi Jinping announcing curbing government excess a central part of his ideology immediately after assuming office.

“We must uphold the fighting of tigers and flies at the same time, resolutely investigating law-breaking cases of leading officials…” President Xi said in January this year.

A total of 4,698 county-level cadres or higher-level cadres were punished by the CPC’s discipline watchdogs in 2012.

In another high-profile corruption trial, China handed down a suspended death sentence to Liu Zhijun, former railways minister earlier in July this year.

Zhijun has been indicted of charges of accepting 64 million yuan ($10 million) in bribes for over 25 years.

Source: Agencies