The son of Shanghai's former Party chief Chen Liangyu was jailed for three years in Tianjin yesterday, with four years' probation, over his involvement in the infamous Shanghai pension-fund scandal.

The Tianjin No.2 Intermediate People's Court found Chen Weili guilty of misusing the city's pension fund, together with his father, via lending a media company 1 billion yuan (US$147 million).

After receiving the money, the Huawen Media Investment Corporation hired Chen Weili as general manager of one of its subsidiaries and paid him 1 million yuan a year.

Chen Weili was also found to have made illicit profits from the Shanghai Shenhua Group when he acted as its deputy general manager.

He was given a "VIP card" with 100,000 yuan installed after his father dined with Shenhua's general manager, Yu Zhifei.

Chen Liangyu asked Yu whether his son had a similar card when he saw Yu use the card to pay for their dinner. Yu immediately arranged a similar card for Chen Weili.

Yu received four years' jail for his role in Shanghai's 3.7-billion-yuan pension-fund scandal, which pushed 25 senior government and corporate executives into defendants' seats in Shanghai, Jilin Province and Anhui Province.

Chen Weili told the court he would not appeal.

Chen Liangyu's attorney Gao Zicheng told Beijing Evening News that Chen considered his son's punishment appropriate.

Gao said that just one reason Chen Liangyu cooperated with police and prosecutors during his trial was because he wanted Chen Weili exonerated.

Chen Liangyu never meant to make profits from Shenhua through his son, Gao said.

Chen Liangyu had urged Shenhua several times to stop paying his son after Chen Weili moved to Hong Kong.

Chen Liangyu even returned a month of Chen Weili's salary to Shenhua after he quit the company, according to Gao.

Chen Liangyu, 62, was handed an 18-year prison term and had 300,000 yuan worth of his personal property confiscated by the Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People's Court on April 11.

The court said Chen Liangyu took bribes totaling 2.4 million yuan and abused his power on project approvals, capital arrangements, urban planning and job promotions during his tenure as the head of the Huangpu District government and as Party chief of Shanghai from 1988 to 2006.

(Shanghai Daily August 4, 2008)