A former senior official in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China, has been sentenced to death following a massive corruption case. The Changzhou People's Court announced that the former official, named Yang Youlin, accepted more than 2.2 billion yuan ($324 million) in bribes while holding various public positions between 1993 and 2023.
The court stated that the bribes were given in exchange for assistance in matters such as "project contracting, commercial activities, land allocation, and working capital." Yang was also convicted of embezzlement, bribery, misuse of public funds, abuse of power, and money laundering.
Yang, who appeared in the courtroom wearing a navy blue jacket, expressed his "guilt and remorse" in his final statement to the court. More than 30 people attended the two-day public hearings held in March and April.
In addition to the sentence, the court ordered the confiscation of all of Yang's assets and the recovery of all proceeds from his bribery. The ruling is seen as one of the most notable outcomes of President Xi Jinping's long-running anti-corruption campaign.
In recent years, other senior figures in China have also received death sentences for corruption. In 2021, Lai Xiaomin, the party secretary of a state-owned company, was executed for bribery and bigamy, and in 2024, local official Li Jianping from Inner Mongolia was executed after being convicted of embezzlement and bribery. Zhang Zhongsheng from Shanxi, who was sentenced to death in 2018 for accepting over 1 billion yuan in bribes, had his sentence commuted to a suspended death sentence and life imprisonment in 2021 after an appeal.
