'The lust for money clouded my judgment'

Editor's note: Corruption Fight Is Always Underway, a documentary produced by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and CCTV, continues to broadcast the stories of former senior officials accused of corruption during the country's anti-graft drive. The series, which began on Monday last week, consists of eight episodes over nine days (Saturday was excluded) at 8 pm on CCTV-1. The interviews were conducted while the former officials were detained, but before any court action.

"I was aware of the regulations that prohibit the offspring of officials from doing business (in the areas or the same city where the officials are in charge). It was the lust for money that clouded my judgment."

Liu was found guilty of accepting about 35.6 million yuan ($5.8 million) in return for granting favors to businesses.

According to the documentary, Liu was sentenced to life in prison on Dec 10, 2014, for misusing his power for personal benefit.

The documentary showed that a businessman from a chemical firm set up a company for his son, Liu Decheng, and gave him 825 million yuan with fabricated business contracts. The businessman was granted a chemical engineering project as a reward.

"I've committed heinous crimes. I caused a huge loss for the country's natural resource development and tainted the reputation of the Communist Party of China. I plead no contest to the conviction."

 

Jiang Jiemin, 61, former head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission

According to the documentary, Jiang was sentenced to 16 years in prison in October last year for taking bribes, possessing large amounts of assets of unknown provenance, and abusing his power as an employee of a State-owned company. Jiang misused his power as the former chairman of China National PetroleumCorp to grant nine oil fields development franchises, which led to 3 billion yuan in illegal gains. The value of seven of the fields hadn't been assessed before the franchises were granted.