A Chinese court sentenced a former Shanghai land official to death on Thursday for accepting bribes totalling at least five million dollars, state media reported.
A Shanghai intermediate court sentenced Yin Guoyuan, former deputy director of the Shanghai Housing, Land and Resources Administration Bureau, to death with two years' reprieve, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing court papers.
The two-year reprieve most likely means the death penalty will be cut to life in prison.
Prosecutors said Yin accepted 35.55 million yuan in bribes between 2000 and 2004, the report said. He also failed to explain the source of 3.97 million yuan in his possession, Xinhua said.
Yin is the latest official to be convicted in a lengthy corruption probe into the city's finances that has felled some of Shanghai's top industry executives and politicians, including Communist Party city chief Chen Liangyu.
Yin, 64, accepted the bribes himself or with his wife Chen Wei, who got seven years' imprisonment, from real estate development companies in return for favourable treatment in land use applications, the report said.
He was also found to have stored 52 military-issue bullets in his home, it said.
