A Court in north-eastern China on Thursday sentenced Ex-China spymaster Ma Jian to life imprisonment over corruption.
The court said in a statement “Ma Jian’s behaviour constituted the crime of accepting bribes, forcing others to trade and insider trading.”
Ma pleaded guilty and has decided not to appeal, the court said, adding that his political rights have been revoked for life and all his personal assets confiscated.
According to the court;
From 1999 to 2014, Ma used his position at the ministry to help Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui further his business interests, receiving over 109 million yuan ($15.9 million) in bribes, detailing several instances where the two had colluded.
In 2013, Ma engaged in insider trading through his relatives, selling some 49 million yuan worth of stocks.
“The defendant Ma Jian’s bribery amount was extremely large, and the national and people’s interests suffered a particularly heavy loss, which seriously infringed on the integrity of civil servants,” the court said in its judgement.
Ma’s fall from grace was precipitated by a sweeping investigation into other figures in China’s security apparatus, most notably Zhou Yongkang who was responsible for the security ministry and Ma’s boss in 2012.
A former deputy head of China’s ministry of state security, Ma was put under investigation for corruption in 2015 and expelled from the Communist Party the following year.
