Three?officials from central China's Hunan Province were sentenced to death or life imprisonment yesterday.

The Intermediate People's Court of Changsha, Hunan's capital, found Li Dalun, former Party chief of Chenzhou city, guilty of taking bribes and holding assets from unidentified sources, Hunan's news portal Rednet.com.cn reported.

Li was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. All his assets were confiscated.

Li's wife Chen Lihua, was found guilty of taking bribes and sentenced to 10 years.

The court also ordered the confiscation of 1 million yuan (US$146,300) of Chen's assets.

Li and Chen were found to have taken bribes worth about 14 million yuan during Li's tenure from February 1999 to May 2006.

They were also found in possession of nearly 18 million yuan from unidentified sources.

All the illicit money was confiscated, the court said.

Li's colleague Zeng Jin°?chun, former deputy chief of the Communist Party of China's Chenzhou committee, was sentenced to death and faced execution.

Zeng, also the former head of Chenzhou committee's disciplinary organ, was found guilty of taking bribes of more than 30 million yuan from the second half of 1997 to September 2006.

Zeng also had nearly 10 million yuan of assets from unidentified sources, the court said.

Chenzhou's former mayor Zhou Zhengkun was sentenced to life for taking bribes of nearly 13 million yuan. Family members were also implicated.

Li and Zhou were given lighter punishments as they returned most of the illicit money and cooperated with police, the court said.

(Shanghai Daily November 21, 2008)