Chengdu official reveals details of disgraced cadre Li Chuncheng's graft

A senior district official in Chengdu has alleged that recently disgraced former Sichuan deputy party secretary Li Chuncheng offered bribes for promotion, sold official positions to incompetent candidates and made his wife head of Chengdu's Red Cross after it received huge sums following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

yesterday quoted Shen Yong, director of the Chengdu district's United Front Work Department, as saying that Li had offered a huge bribe in the early 1990s to then-Heilongjiang deputy party boss Han Guizhi to win a promotion, had sold a large number of official positions after being appointed Chengdu's party chief in 2003, and had made staggering profits by colluding with developers and pushing ahead with unnecessary city redevelopment projects.

Han was given a suspended death penalty in 2005 for selling government jobs and corruption.

The newspaper said Qu Songzhi, Li's wife and deputy chairwoman of Chengdu's Red Cross, was also being investigated for graft, together with four other Red Cross staff. However, mainland news portals were ordered to delete similar reports yesterday afternoon, because they "involved too many officials".

Li, 56, was believed to be the first ministerial-level official to be investigated following the Communist Party's national congress last month.

At the congress, he became an alternate member of the party's Central Committee.