nuclear-news

China’s crooked nuclear power chief gets life sentence, rather than death penalty

raises the possibility of the Chinese government protecting him just as the Pakistan government is protecting its rogue nuclear salesman A Q Khan……

The curious case of China’s former nuclear power chief’s life sentence news, domain-b.com,  20 November 2010 The former chief of China’s civilian and military nuclear programmes and the prime facilitator of Pakistan’s Chashma Nuclear Power Project, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chinese court yesterday for accepting bribes.
The official Xinhua News Agency yesterday reported, citing a statement from Beijing’s First Intermediary Court, that Kang Rixin, the former head of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), was convicted for taking 6.6 million yuan ($994,000) in kickbacks between 2004 and 2009. Interestingly, when Kang was fired from his job last year, the Chinese government had accused him of taking bribes totalling 1.8 billion yuan, the equivalent of $260 million.

During the course of the investigation, the Chinese government seized his personal assets in December 2009 and stripped him of his political rights for life.
………….Kang is reported to have taken bribes between 2004 and 2009 in exchange for granting contracts to companies from France and Southeast Asia and also for allegedly trading on the stock market for his own gain with large amounts of public funds that were earmarked for the construction of three nuclear power plants.

It is likely that his embezzlement was discovered when the stock market crashed in late 2007.

But now being convicted by the court for taking merely $1 million in bribes after being earlier accused in 2009 of taking $260 million in kickbacks raises the possibility of the Chinese government protecting him just as the Pakistan government is protecting its rogue nuclear salesman A Q Khan……

As the head of the CNNC, he was instrumental in expanding China’s nuclear industry, including nuclear weapons. He was also the prime facilitator of supplying nuclear plants to Pakistan including the Chashma Nuclear Power Project (Chasnupp) Phase I and II.

Chasnupp 1 was the first Chinese-built nuclear generating unit on foreign soil. China has also sold Algeria a heavy water reactor for research.

CNNC is the successor to the ministry of nuclear industry, which built China’s first atom bomb, hydrogen bomb and nuclear submarine. It functioned as a government bureau for the national nuclear industry and reported directly to the Chinese State Council…….

CNNC, which is an industrial conglomerate, comprising over 200 enterprises and institutions with advanced technology and equipment and a total of 280 000 employees, is also responsible for mining of uranium into nuclear fuel, nuclear manufacturing for both military and civilian use, nuclear waste treatment and storage, and nuclear safety.

It also exports nuclear power plants and heavy water to countries like Pakistan and Algeria. Its effort to build reactors in Pakistan and the Middle East, have raised concerns in the West about nuclear proliferation.

domain-b.com : The curious case of China’s former nuclear power chief’s life sentence

November 21, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, secrets,lies and civil liberties | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear spin