Lijun Put (Sun Lijun)

Lijun Put (Sun Lijun)

Biography

2022: Sentenced to death for corruption

On September 23, 2022, former Deputy Security Minister China Sun Lijun, who was accused of leading a political clique and disloyalty to the president, Xi Jinping was jailed for life.

Sun Lijun was sentenced after five former police chiefs implicated in his corruption case were jailed in early September 2022, marking the start of the largest purge in China's security apparatus since 2017.

Sun Lijun

The court said in a statement that from 2001 to April 2020, Sun Lijun, abusing his official powers, provided assistance to interested institutions and third parties in such areas as doing business, personnel reshuffle and considering court cases. For the assistance provided personally or through intermediaries, he received financial and material values ​ ​ totaling more than $92 million. Lijun was also found guilty of manipulating the stock market in the first half of 2018, helping third parties avoid losses of $21 million, and illegal possession of two firearms.

According to the verdict of the instance, Lijun was deprived of political rights for life, and all his personal property was confiscated. At the end of the two-year reprieve, the sentence under the law will be commuted to life imprisonment with no right to commutation or parole.

The judge concluded that the amount of bribes received by Lijun turned out to be particularly large, and the crimes he committed caused serious damage to the interests of China. Based on the fact that the defendant pleaded guilty not only to the above crimes, but also to receiving bribes that the investigating authorities did not initially know about, and repented of what he had done. Sun Lijun assisted in the return of misappropriated property and testified about other serious offenses, the court sentenced him to death with a suspension of execution.^[1]

Notes