China’s Communist Party purged a senior lawmaker yesterday and ordered him prosecuted for allegedly taking more than $4.5 million worth of bribes in order to marry his mistress.
The expulsion of Cheng Kejie is the most embarrassing case in a string of corruption scandals rocking the Beijing leadership.
Cheng, a deputy chairman of the national legislature, allegedly conspired with his lover, Li Ping, to take kickbacks in return for approving building projects, promotions and commodity deals between 1992 and 1998.
The couple intended to use the money as a nest egg once Li, who is married, was free to marry Cheng, prosecutors said.
“Cheng’s degeneration happened because he abandoned his ideals and belief in communism,” the state news agency, Xinhua, quoted a spokesman for a Communist Party discipline commission as saying.
The agency did not say what punishment Cheng faces – but last month, Hu Changquing, a former vice governor of Jiangxi province, was executed for taking $850,000 in bribes.