A FORMER official of the Shenzhen Municipal Government stood trial Monday on charges of abusing power and taking bribes.

Zhu Tingfeng, former deputy secretary general of the Shenzhen Municipal Government, was charged with taking bribes totaling 35 million yuan (US$5.3 million), along with others, by offering help to Shenzhen Yulonggong Industrial Development Co., when he served as a department chief in the city’s urban planning, land and resources bureau and vice head of the Futian District Government.

In 2003, Zhu, then department chief of the bureau’s land administration department, conspired with Lin, chairman of Wedge Group, to purchase the Yulonggong company for 28 million yuan.

Zhu abused his power to help Lin get a parcel of land for the company, and without paying a penny, Zhu gained control of 35 percent of the shares of the Yulonggong company through his relative surnamed Zhong.

In December 2005, Zhong transferred 35 percent of the shares to Lin’s company, Wedge, and received 30 million yuan from Lin.

Lin initially transferred 10.75 million yuan to Zhong’s account, but to further cover the crime, Zhu and Zhong asked Lin to acquire a shell company controlled by Zhong. Between 2008 and 2010, Lin transferred 25 million yuan to the company’s accounts.

The court investigation showed that Zhu had also abused his power to change a 28,000-square-meter land parcel earmarked for tourism projects into land for commercial apartments for the Yulonggong company.

The company has been disqualified from developing the land since it left the land idle for years. But in May 2002, when Zhu was working as department chief of the land administration of the city’s urban planning bureau, he reserved the qualification of the company, and when he was working as head of the construction land department in February 2006, he approved the swap of the land with a plot in Liantangwei area and issued the land use approval in June 2006.

At the end of 2006, when Zhu was working as vice head of the Futian District Government, he helped Yulonggong acquire the land. In March 2009, the company got the land after paying 135 million yuan. However, the audit showed that the land parcel was valued at 1.06 billion yuan.

(Han Ximin)