China executed a former executive of a major state-controlled financial company on Tuesday (9) after finding him guilty of corruption, state media reported.
Bai Tianhui, former chief executive of China Huarong International Holdings (CHIH), was found guilty of accepting more than US$156 million (847 million reais) in exchange for favorable treatment in the acquisition and financing of projects between 2014 and 2018, according to state television CCTV.
CHIH is a subsidiary of China Huarong Asset Management, a debt management company.
The company is the target of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign. The group’s former chairman, Lai Xiaomin, was executed in 2021 for receiving $253 million in bribes.
In China, death sentences for corruption are generally suspended for two years, then commuted to life imprisonment.
Bai appealed the conviction, handed down in May 2024 in the city of Tianjin, but the country’s highest court ratified the conviction in February.
“(The former banker) accepted bribes of an exceptionally high value, the circumstances of his crimes were exceptionally serious, the social impact was particularly atrocious, and the interests of the state and the people suffered exceptionally large losses,” CCTV said, citing the court.
The former banker was executed this Tuesday in Tianjin after a meeting with his relatives, the channel added, without specifying how he was executed.
China keeps death penalty figures secret, even though Amnesty International and other human rights groups say thousands of people are executed in the country each year.
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