Former senior Xinjiang official receives sentence

Li Pengxin, a former senior official of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for accepting bribes totaling more than 822 million yuan ($112 million), according to a verdict on Tuesday.

The verdict was announced by the Intermediate People's Court in Baoji, Shaanxi province. It noted that after the two-year reprieve period, the death sentence for Li, former deputy secretary of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regional Committee of the Communist Party of China, would be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of further commutation or parole.

Li, 65, is a native of Shanxi province. He started his career in 1977 and joined the Party in 1984.