Sinopec ex-chairman gets death sentence

BEIJING, July 15 (UPI) -- The former head of the China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. was sentenced to death Wednesday, with a two-year reprieve, for taking bribes totaling nearly $30 million, the state news agency Xinhua reported.

Chen Tonghai, who served as chairman of Sinopec from 2006 to 2007, is deprived of all his political rights for life and his property is confiscated, according to a Beijing Intermediate Court, Xinhua said.

Tonghai took advantage of his positions at Sinopec, the court said. He began serving as deputy general manager in 1998.

In return, the court said, Tonghai assisted others in seeking illegal interests in the company's operations as well as in land transfers and project contracts.

Because Tonghai, 60, had confessed and turned in all the bribes he took, admitted to his crimes and provided clues on the crimes of others, the court sentenced him to death with a two-year reprieve according to law, according to court sources, Xinhua reported.

Under Tonghai's two-year reprieve, his sentence will be commuted to life in prison if he commits no further crime while in jail.

A July 2007 report in SinoFile, an independent media monitoring company covering Mainland China, said Tonghai had submitted a "self confession" in early June 2007 to the company's disciplinary committee and organization department. In mid-June he was advised by the committee to publicly confess while remaining at his post, but apparently he was making preparations to leave the country.

According to SinoFile, Tonghai allegedly obtained a fake sick leave paper from the hospital on June 20, 2007, and was found in the Hong Kong airport that evening, apparently planning to escape to Vancouver. Two days later it was announced that he stepped down from Sinopec for "personal reasons." Sinopec stock dropped nearly 8 percent on news of Tonghai's abrupt departure, SinoFile reported.

A subsidiary of China Petrochemical Corp., Asia's largest oil refiner, Sinopec is China's second-largest oil company after PetroChina.

The state-controlled firm, regarded for its stellar performance, has listings on the Shanghai, Hong Kong and London stock exchanges.

Before Tonghai's 2007 departure from Sinopec, its revenues had soared by 30 percent from the previous year and its stock had more than doubled.

Sinopec is China's largest producer and supplier of refined oil products and major petrochemical products. It is also China's second-largest crude oil producer. It has more than 80 subsidiaries and branches.

Increasingly China has been plagued by a number of incidents of misconduct among corporate leaders, government officials and heads of political parties.