30 March 2016•Update: 08 April 2016
By Mahmut Atanur
BEIJING
A former vice governor known to have served as an aide to China’s disgraced former security chief was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison on corruption charges.
Ji Wenlin, former vice governor of southern Hainan Province, was found guilty of taking advantage of his posts by seeking benefits for others and receiving bribes and assets allegedly worth around 20 million yuan ($3 million).
State news agency Xinhua reported that the court ordered Ji -- who also held posts in southwest Sichuan Province and the Ministry of Public Security -- to pay 1 million yuan ($154,000) in fines.
Ji, 50, had served as an aide for Zhou Yongkang, the highest-ranking official to be investigated under President Xi Jingping’s anti-graft campaign.
According to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, Ji was employed in fields where Zhou became a leading figure -- including in the Ministry of Land and Resources, security minister and Sichuan.
He was dismissed from his position as Hainan’s vice governor in Feb. 2014 upon being placed under investigation of graft.
Zhou was handed a life term in June under the anti-corruption campaign, which has also seen his other allies sentenced to jail.
Among them, former vice minister of public security Li Dongsheng was sentenced to 15 years in January, and Jiang Jiemin -- the one-time head of China's biggest oil firm -- to 16 years in October last year.
Both Jiang and Zhou were reportedly members of a Communist Party faction known as the “Petroleum Gang".
In its sentence of Ji Wednesday, the Tianjin No. 1 Intermediate People's Court gave him a “lenient” term since he reportedly confessed to his crimes, handed over bribes and “exposed other criminal evidence”, according to Xinhua.
