Vice mayor gets 150-month jail term for bribery in east China

HANGZHOU, Dec. 23 (Chinese media) -- A vice mayor in east

China's Zhejiang Province was sentenced 12 and a half years in jail for bribery

in land-for-money scandals, a local court said on Tuesday in its first trial.

Xie Weixing, Shaoxing City vice-mayor, accepted

bribes worth about 1.2 million yuan (177,000 U.S. dollars) in exchange for

approving housing projects and promoting officials between 1996 and 2008,

according to the Intermediate People's Court of Ningbo City.

Xie, 53, was arrested by the Zhejiang Provincial

Public Security Department in September. He used to hold the post of party

secretary of the city's Xinchang County and was promoted to Shaoxing's

vice-mayor in 2003.

He played a key role in ensuring the Xinchang-based

Fengdao Group, a leading local company, won the bid for a nearly

90,000-square-meter block of farming land, according to the court.

The Group started real estate development on the land

after the bidding. It's board chairman, Xu Xiaofang, was arrested before Xie.

Xie has not appealed by the press time.