Former China security chief Zhou Yongkang sentenced to life for corruption

The First Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin said Zhou was sentenced Thursday.

It said he was convicted of receiving bribes, abusing his power and leaking state secrets. The sentence also mandates the seizure of all of Zhou’s personal assets.

“I accept the court verdict, and I will not appeal,” Zhou told the court, with his head lowered and body slightly bowed.

In this image taken from video released by China’s CCTV, Zhou Yongkang, center, formerly the Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of security, speaks with his head bowed in a courtroom at the First Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin in Tianjin, China, Thursday, June 11, 2015.(Source: AP)

Zhou was once seen as not only a potent rival of Xi but as the center of a vast patronage network stemming from his separate stints as an executive in the state-owned oil industry, party boss in the southwestern province of Sichuan and head of state security.

“The case involves senior folks from the petroleum industry, the state security apparatus with many corruption scandals,” said Willy Lam, an expert on China’s elite politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “The authorities wanted to avoid having them appear in the public.”

Lam said Zhou had been expected to receive a suspended death sentence, and that the life sentence indicated that Xi wanted to compromise and not antagonize any party members who had been allied with the former security czar.

“President Xi does not want to make too many enemies,” Lam said. “Xi has won the battle and he does not want to go too far.”