BEIJING — The man who once ran China’s powerful railways ministry wept as he admitted his guilt and sought leniency Sunday at his trial on corruption charges, one of the country’s highest-level graft cases in years.
Liu Zhijun, 60, who oversaw the ministry’s high-profile bullet train development, has been accused of taking massive bribes and steering lucrative projects to associates. The case is seen as an indicator of how top-level officials might fare in an anticorruption campaign that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed will target both high and low officials.
The case presents a thorny challenge to the Chinese government, which wants to appear tough on graft but is mindful of how the prosecution of a massive case like Liu’s could further hurt public confidence in the railway system. Such a case raises questions of whether the corruption affected the construction, management, and operation of the railways that serve millions of Chinese every day.
Liu’s defense attorney, Qian Lieyang, said after the trial that his client admitted guilt and expressed remorse during the proceedings, weeping as he read out a personal statement.
Qian also said he asked the court to consider Liu’s contributions in spearheading the much-admired high-speed train system when drawing up the sentence.
Even prosecutors asked the court for lenience on Liu’s behalf, saying that he showed a positive attitude during investigations and confessed to many wrongdoings on his own accord, Qian told reporters.
Qian’s account of the prosecution’s approach suggests that authorities were trying to lay the legal groundwork for delivering a sentence that would appear to be tough on corruption, while not being too severe on a person whose name is so closely tied with the high-speed railways — a source of national pride.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that prosecutors accuse Liu of using his position of influence to help about 11 business associates win promotions and project contracts and accepted $10.5 million in unspecified bribes between 1986 and 2011.