BEIJING (AP) – Chinese authorities placed the feared ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang under formal arrest early Saturday to investigate his suspected crimes, including accepting bribes, adultery and leaking the country’s secrets, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Zhou, a former member of the powerful nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, also was expelled from the Communist Party, making him the most senior figure to be snared in President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crackdown.
The square-jawed, granite-faced Zhou is the highest-level official to be prosecuted since the 1981 treason trial of Mao Zedong’s wife and other members of the “Gang of Four” who persecuted political opponents during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.
He had been under investigation for “severe disciplinary violations” – a phrase is usually used to describe corruption – since July and presumably had been detained by party investigators months earlier. He had not been seen publicly since October 2013.
“He abused his power to help relatives, mistresses and friends make huge profits from operating businesses, resulting in serious losses of state-owned assets,” Xinhua said in its report published shortly after midnight.
The decision to expel Zhou was made Friday after attendees at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the party’s Central Committee deliberated over an investigation report on Zhou, who was in charge of China’s massive domestic security apparatus before his retirement in 2012.
Prosecutors then announced his formal arrest and opened a criminal case against him early Saturday.
The investigation found that Zhou had “seriously violated the Party’s political, organisational and confidentiality discipline”, the report said.
“Zhou leaked the Party’s and country’s secrets,” the report went on to say. “He seriously violated self-disciplinary regulations and accepted a large amount of money and properties personally and through his family. Zhou committed adultery with a number of women and traded his power for sex and money.”
Zhou was considered by many observers and political experts to have been a key rival to Xi. By targeting Zhou, Xi showed the considerable power he has amassed since he took the helm of the party in November 2012.