China charges two senior officials linked to disgraced security tsar Zhou Yongkang

Two senior Chinese officials with close ties to disgraced security tsar Zhou Yongkang have been formally charged with taking bribes, China’s top prosecuting body said on Friday.

Former deputy national police chief Li Dongsheng took advantage of his positions at state broadcaster CCTV, the Ministry of Public Security and the party’s Central Politics and Law Commission to seek benefits for others in exchange for huge profits, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate said in a statement on its website on Friday.

In a separate statement, the top procuratorate said former Hainan vice-governor Ji Wenlin had committed the same crime during his tenures at the general office of the Sichuan provincial party standing committee, the general office of the Ministry of Public Security and the Haikou government in Hainan province.

The statements did not mention the amount of bribes the two senior officials took.

Li’s and Ji’s cases will be heard separately at two intermediate people’s courts in Tianjin. No specific dates of their trials were given.

The two are close associates of Zhou, who was in June sentenced to life in prison for taking bribes, abusing his power and intentionally leaking state secrets. Zhou, who is the most senior official to receive such a heavy sentence since the Cultural Revolution, was also tried in Tianjin.