(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-10-23 21:38

SHENYANG -- A former drug official in northeast China's Liaoning Province was sentenced to 15 years for taking bribes worth 700,000 yuan (US$93,000), a local court said on Tuesday.

Zhang Shusen, 62, former director of Liaoning Provincial Food and Drug Administration and a member of the standing committee of the Liaoning Provincial People's Political Consultative Conference, was arrested in December last year on suspicion of bribery, said the Panjin City Intermediate People's Court.

The court said the administration accepted three million yuan (US$400,000) in donations in August 2000 to renovate its office building.

One month later, the head of the administration's general affairs office, surnamed Mei, took out 300,000 yuan (US$40,000) from the donation and Zhang pocketed the money.

In June 2006, Zhang interfered in a case involving a Jilin Province-based medicine company selling counterfeit medicines. Zhang got 50,000 yuan (US$7,000) in exchange for mitigating the the company's punishment, the court said, without giving further details.

He also took bribes from medicine producers as well as subordinates who asked for promotion.