Mayor and Party chief of Shanghai yesterday ordered to punish
lawbreaking entrepreneurs with severity, Eastday.com reported.
Han Zheng, the acting secretary of the
Communist Party of China of Shanghai, said at a finance and
taxation conference that "lawless people" and entrepreneurs like
Zhou Zhengyi shall be punished severely, the city's official news
portal Website reported.?
Zhou, also known as Chau Ching-ngai in Hong Kong, was a former
property and securities tycoon but has recently been linked to the
city's pension fund scandal and a series of economic crimes.
Han said lawless people not only disturb market order, but they
also disrupt social order.
Han ordered judicial authorities and its staff members to not be
softhearted in the fulfillment of their duties.
Han said Zhou was suspicious of falsifying value added tax
invoices. According to Chinese law, these charges fall under
felonies and violators could face the death penalty.
He was also involved in bribing officials with large sums of
money, Han added.
Han also stated that the whole legal process should be
transparent and information should be released to society at the
right time.
Zhou was arrested on Sunday after prosecutors found evidence
linking him to the city's pension fund scandal, Shanghai People's
Procuratorate said on Monday.
Zhou, 46, was convicted by the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate
People's Court in June 2004 for falsifying registered capital
reports and for share price manipulation. The former president of
Shanghai-based Nongkai Development Group was sentenced to three
years imprisonment but was given credit for his time already
served.
Zhou is still wanted by Hong Kong's Independent Commission
Against Corruption, which accuses him of rigging stock prices when
he controlled the then Hong Kong-listed Shanghai Land Holdings Ltd,
a subsidiary of Nongkai.
Shanghai kicked off an anti-corruption campaign in August with
investigations into the misuse of the city's pension fund, which
has already implicated many government officials and company
executives, with former Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Liangyu
dismissed in September.
(Shanghai Daily January 25, 2007)