Chinese official sentenced to 12 years for graft

A former Chinese official has been sentenced to 12 years in prison by a court in central China's Hunan Province for corruption and abuse of power.
The Chenzhou City Intermediate People's Court also deprived Ma Yong, former deputy Secretary General of the Hunan provincial committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), of his personal assets of one million yuan (USD 150,000) after he was convicted of accepting bribes of up to 3.68 million yuan.
According to the court, Ma accepted 100,000 yuan and a 100-g gold bar valued at 33,000 yuan from relatives of defendants in murder cases in 2012 and 2013, when he served as the CPC chief of Yiyang City, Hunan.

In exchange, Ma asked court personnel to give light sentences to the defendants, the court said.
He was also found to have arranged for 5.8 million yuan in land transfer revenue to be returned to property developers, causing great loss to the country, the court said, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Ma admitted to the crimes and confessed in court, the report said.