A FORMER director of Hebei Province’s reform commission was detained by anti-graft authorities during the annual gathering of the provincial people’s congress, a report said.

    Liu Xueku, 60, now facing a corruption investigation, was hauled away from the meeting by Party discipline supervisors on Sunday, the event’s last day, an unnamed source from the congress told the 21st Century Business Herald.

    The source said other deputies also were taken away for investigations during this year’s meeting.

    There was speculation that the probe against Liu might have something to do with his work in Langfang City, where he was born and was a top leader during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

    Several local politicians were quoted as saying that members of Liu’s family were also under investigation, and that the case’s whistle-blower was one of Liu’s former subordinates.

    Liu started his professional career as an accountant at a food company in Langfang’s Dachang Hui Autonomous County. In 2003, he rose to become deputy director of the province’s foreign trade department. He was later named deputy director of the development and reform commission.

    In 2006, he was transferred to the city of Cangzhou, south of Langfang, to be its deputy Party secretary.

    Between January and March last year, he served as director of the development and reform commission.

    His record came under suspicion when an online post late last month showed a litany of his suspected crimes between 1997 and last April, including taking bribes, inappropriately approving land use applications, keeping mistresses and breaking the one-child policy.

    (SD-Agencies)