Chinese authorities have arrested former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang and expelled him from the ruling Communist Party, accusing him of crimes ranging from accepting bribes to leaking state secrets and setting the stage for his trial.
Zhou, 71, is by far the highest-profile figure caught up in President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption, according to Reuters.
He is also the most senior Chinese official to be ensnared in a graft scandal since the Communists swept to power in 1949 and the highest-ranking to be prosecuted since the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976 following the Cultural Revolution.
In a terse statement released by the official Xinhua news agency at midnight into Saturday, the party’s elite decision-making politburo said Zhou’s case had been handed over to judicial authorities.
The party began its probe into Zhou, one of China’s most powerful politicians of the last decade, in July, following months of rumors and speculation that he was in trouble.
