CHINA-INTERNAL: ANTI-CORRUPTION
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The Chinese magazine Caixin reported on October 9, 2016, that a court in Anyang, Henan province had sentenced 70-year old Bai Enpei, a former Party Secretary of Yunnan and Qinghai provinces between 2000 and 2013 and a former member and Deputy Director of the Environment and Resources Protection Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), to death with a two-year reprieve for bribery. The court also said Bai Enpei will be ineligible for parole or a reduced sentence if his death sentence is commuted to life in prison. Bai Enpei was accused of illegally amassing over 247 million yuan ($37 million). The amount of bribes involved in Bai's case is the highest among senior officials prosecuted for graft since 2012. (Comment: Under Chinese law, a death sentence with a two-year reprieve can be commuted to a life sentence, and the jail term can be shortened based on the prisoner's conduct. But in October 2015, the NPC amended the country's penal code to allow a court to rule against the shortening of a jail term in a bribery case in which a large sum of money was involved or if the offender had caused grave damage to state or individual interests. The court additionally ruled against allowing Bai Enpei to apply for parole once his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. Bai Enpei is the first ministerial-level official whose right to parole was revoked.)
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