Former Chinese energy chief on trial for corruption

BEIJING

The former chief of China’s state-owned companies who had previously headed the country’s biggest petroleum firm went on trial Monday for corruption.

Jiang Jiemin, 60, former head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), was charged with taking bribes, abuse of power, and possessing a large amount of assets from unidentified sources, state news agency Xinhua reported.

The Hanjiang Intermediate People's Court in Hubei province, in the easternmost part of central China, began hearing the case at around 8.30 a.m.  (0330GMT).

Jiang served as the chairman of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the parent company of Asia's biggest oil producer PetroChina, from 2011 to 2013.

He was appointed the head of SASAC in March 2013, but dismissed from post the following September after being placed under investigation.

Last June, he was expelled from the Communist Party of China.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate announced last month that Jiang had been indicted on suspicion of corruption and abuse of power after the investigation into him was completed.

Jiang was a protege of former security chief 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. Both were reportedly members of a Communist Party faction known as the “Petroleum Gang.”

Earlier this month, Zhou was formally charged with bribery, abuse of power and the intentional disclosure of state secrets.

Jiang had joined CNPC in 1999, a year after Zhou left his post as its general manager to serve as the Minister for Land and Resources.

The anti-corruption drive has placed China’s biggest oil and natural gas producer under its microscope, with at least 10 of its current and former executives undergoing investigation. 

The Communist Party’s corruption watchdog said last month that Liao Yongyuan,  vice president of PetroChina, is also suspected of “severe disciplinary" violations, according to the Shanghai Daily. The phrase is usually used to refer to corruption.

In February, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said it would target 26 giant state-owned firms this year.