A China Central Television legal reporter arrested at her Beijing home in December on orders from Shanxi prosecutors has received a suspended three-year jail term for taking 37,000 yuan (HK$42,000) in bribes.
Xinghualing District Court in Taiyuan sentenced Li Min, 30, yesterday for accepting bribes from Hunan native Wu Xiaohua while doing research for an investigative news report. The court ruled that Li, as an employee of CCTV, was considered to be working for the country and that taking money from an interviewee was an abuse of power that resulted in gain.
The incident began with Mr Wu telling reporters that a Xinghualing district chief prosecutor, He Shusheng, had repeatedly detained his brother Wu Xiaohui, a businessman, and seized his property because he was involved in a financial dispute with another businessman. The charges of bribery, contract fraud and defamation Mr He brought against Wu Xiaohui were dropped because of lack of evidence.
In October, Li and two other Beijing reporters arrived in Taiyuan to research a possible story, but Mr He demanded they leave immediately and hinted they might lose their journalists' credentials.
In December, four Xinghualing District Court officials showed copies of documents and arrested Li, saying they had been appointed by the country's highest prosecutor to handle the case. They alleged she had taken money from Wu Xiaohua to do the story on the alleged interference by Mr He into his brother's dispute.
Li's lawyer, Zhou Ze, said Li and Wu Xiaohua were dating at the time, and that the gifts he had bought her, including a 200,000 yuan car, were relevant to that relationship.
