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Flies and Tigers | 抓蝇打虎

Former Tianjin mayor under investigation

Source: AP | January 23, 2017, Monday | Print Edition

THE man who was mayor of Tianjin at the time of a warehouse explosion that killed 173 people is being investigated for bribery, China’s top prosecutor’s office said yesterday.

However, a two-sentence announcement about Huang Xingguo by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate made no mention of the explosion in the port city east of Beijing.

The SPP said Huang had been placed under “coercive measures,” which may include summons by force, bail, residential surveillance, detention and arrest. An investigation into his case is currently under way, it said.

Other officials have been punished on charges they took bribes to ignore safety violations that led to the blast, one of China’s deadliest workplace accidents.

Investigators found that the warehouse held illegal stores of the combustible fertilizer ammonium nitrate, which caught fire and caused a series of blasts.

State media reported in September that he had been removed from his positions. He was expelled from the Party this month.

The Central Committee for Discipline Inspection said Huang had “severely violated political discipline,” according to Xinhua news agency. It said he took “huge bribes of property and money” and used his position to improperly benefit his son and others.

Most of the people killed in the explosion were firefighters and police who weren’t told ammonium nitrate was in the building.

The head of a logistics company linked to the blast was given a suspended death sentence and lesser penalties were imposed on 48 other government officials and company employees. Last year, the former head of China’s national safety regulator, the State Administration of Work Safety, was charged with taking bribes and embezzlement.

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