Former CCB chief appears in court
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-10-02 08:40 The former president of China Construction Bank
(CCB), Zhang Enzhao, appeared in a Beijing court Thursday. This is his first
appearance in court since he fell from grace at the major Chinese bank in March
2005.
 Zhang, 60, appeared late Thursday afternoon at Beijing No.1
Intermediate People's Court, where he was charged with taking bribes worth 4.15
million yuan (520,000 U.S. dollars), the Beijing News reported Saturday.
Zhang was charged with 19 counts of taking cash and property bribes in return
for helping people get loans from CCB.
Zhang pleaded guilty in court. But his lawyer Gao Zicheng said the real
amount of the bribes is only 1.5 million yuan, arguing that a 2.65 million yuan
house considered by the prosecutors to be a bribe was given to Zhang by an old
friend, and that Zhang accorded no advantage in return.
The lawyer also reminded the court that Zhang had provided all the evidence
against himself, as the prosecutors had nothing on him when he was detained.
According to his lawyer, the Chinese prosecutors took action against Zhang on
the basis of suspicion after he was prosecuted in the United States for taking
one million dollars from a U.S. financial information technology company in
return for a contract to supply software and services to CCB.
The one million dollar bribe in the U.S. case is not part of the charges
against Zhang in the Beijing court.
Zhang was appointed CCB president in January 2002. He resigned from the job
in March 2005 after the U.S. case was exposed.
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