BEIJING, SEPT 14: China on Thursday executed former Parliament vice chairman Cheng Kejie, making him the most senior Communist Party official ever to be put to death for corruption, state media reported. Xinhua news agency said Cheng was executed after his final appeal was rejected by the Supreme People's Court in Beijing, adding that he was stripped of his political rights.Cheng is the most high-profile victim so far of the ``strike hard'' anti-corruption campaign headed by Premier Zhu Rongji that has unearthed scandal after scandal in the past three years. The execution of Cheng, a former vice chairman of the National People's Congress and a member of the Communist Party central committee, comes just after the opening of trials in a vast smuggling scam in Fujian province. More than 200 police, customs and other officials have been implicated in the decade-long 10 billion-dollar smuggling operation based in the port city of Xiamen, including families of some of China's most senior leaders.
