Deputy head of logistics department among 16 suspects netted last year

Liu Zheng, deputy head of the People's Liberation Army's General Logistics Department, is under investigation for suspected legal violations, the PLA said on Thursday.

Liu was placed under investigation in November by the military procuratorate, according to a report on the PLA website.

The report listed 16 senior officers - at corps level and above - as subjects of investigation in 2014.

Liu is not the first deputy head of the PLA General Logistics Department to be investigated. Previously, his predecessor Gu Junshan was charged with embezzlement, bribery, misuse of state funds and abuse of power.

Liu graduated from the Second Artillery Corps Engineering School and has spent his career climbing the military ladder.

He was appointed deputy head of the General Logistics Department in December 2012, replacing Lieutenant General Gu, who was removed from his post, also on corruption charges, in 2012.

Gu was alleged to have accumulated goods and property worth more than 600 million yuan ($98 million) through taking bribes. Such a haul would be the largest in any corruption case involving a member of the PLA.

Yu Daqing, deputy political commissar of the Second Artillery Force, and Fan Changmi, deputy political commissar of the Lanzhou Military Area Command, have also been under investigation since December, the report said.

The report also included other names that have been released previously, including the former vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xu Caihou.

Xu, 71, a former general, was brought down last March. He is the highest-level PLA officer to be investigated and charged in more than 30 years.

President Xi Jinping, who also serves as chairman of the Central Military Commission, has vowed to eradicate corruption in China's 2.3-million-strong armed forces.

The past year has seen a major cleanup of the armed forces amid the nationwide anti-corruption campaign, which was described this week by Xi as "a matter of life or death for the Party and nation".

Former top brass netted in the crackdown last year include:

Wang Minggui, former political commissar of the Air Force command school; Fang Wenping, former head of the Military Command in Shanxi; Wei Jin, deputy political commissar of the Tibet Military Command; Ye Wanyong, former political commissar of the Sichuan Provincial Military Command in Chengdu; Yang Jinshan, deputy commander of the Chengdu Military Command; and Zhang Qibin, former deputy chief of staff at the Military Command in Jinan.

They also include Fu Linguo, a deputy chief of staff at the PLA General Logistics Department; Dai Weimin, deputy president of the PLA Nanjing Political College; Gao Xiaoyan, deputy political commissar and chief of discipline inspection at PLA Information Engineering University; Ma Xiangdong, head of the Political Affairs Department at the PLA Nanjing Political College; Zhang Daixin, a deputy commander at the Military Command in Heilongjiang; and Chen Qiang, a deputy head at PLA unit 96301.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

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