A FORMER government official pleaded guilty to charges of taking bribes during a hearing at the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court on Wednesday, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported Thursday.

    The defendant, Li Zhenguang, is a former department head of the city’s science and technology innovation commission. Li had offered to assist certain science and technology projects in getting government funds in exchange for kickbacks amounting to 3.36 million yuan (USS$501,493).

    Li’s department was in charge of reviewing and recommending funding for projects in health, medical care, biomedicine and environmental science fields. Li took bribes from 12 project applicants and helped them obtain governmental funding in return.

    According to prosecutors, Li helped a Shenzhen-based industrial company get a 4-million-yuan government grant for its scientific project in August 2014 after the company had submitted its funding application to the city’s science and technology innovation commission in 2013.

    The company’s legal representative, surnamed Zhu, gave 500,000 yuan in cash to Li at the end of 2013 and offered him an additional 400,000 yuan in cash in June last year. Prosecutors said Li should be held criminally responsible for accepting the bribes as he exchanged power for money.

    Li pleaded guilty to the charges and asked the court for leniency as he had confessed to the discipline inspection commission about the bribe-taking, and he also reported on other people’s disciplinary violations.

    Li said he couldn’t remember the specific amounts of the bribes he had accepted, and he hoped the court can verify them.

    The hearing continues.

    (Zhang Yang)