The People’s Mediation Court of Dalian in the Chinese region of Liaoning has sentenced the former vice president of the state-owned cannon-industrial monopoly China Tobacco to death on charges of accepting large monetary bribes, with the possibility of commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment after two years.
He Zehua, who previously held the second administrative position in China’s state-owned monopoly on the production and sale of tobacco products, which is even bigger than the world’s first multinational tobacco company, Philip Morris International, was sentenced to death by the communist court with the possibility of reducing his sentence to life imprisonment, subject to its postponement for two years and without the possibility of appeal or commutation. In addition, he was permanently deprived of his voting rights by the court which confiscated his assets, including any profits from smuggling in the course of his work, which were handed over to the state treasury.
The court found, concluding that during the period from 1998 to 2023, He Zehua took advantage of the different positions he held, one of which was the vice presidency of the monopoly tobacco company, to provide privileged business agreements and contracts, as well as personal visits, receiving illegal donations of money equivalent to up to US$132.6 million. It was also found that between 2014 and 2016 he took advantage of the prestige of previous positions he held to accept illegal donations of additional amounts of money.
The court’s ruling emphasized that the amount of bribes involved in He’s offenses was extremely large, the conditions were particularly severe, and the social consequences were extremely damaging, leading to significant losses for the nation and its people. Part of the bribes, however, was not actually taken by him, and he was cooperative throughout the investigation process, willingly returning all ill-gotten gains, which were recovered in full. These aspects were taken into account when determining the verdict.
But this is not the only case in which China’s communist authorities are attacking its tobacco industry. Corruption investigation has also targeted other leaders of China’s state-owned monopoly on tobacco production. China’s communist authorities have opened an investigation into the actions of the current acting deputy head of the state-owned tobacco company, Xu Ying, while its former head, Ling Chengxing, has more recently been arrested.
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