THREE senior judges of the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court have been sentenced to jail terms of between three and a half years and 11 years for corruption, local media reported Saturday.

A Jiangmen court convicted retired judge Liao Zhaohui and divisional court chiefs Cai Xiaoling and Zhang Tinghua of graft crimes, the sznews.com Web site said in a report citing the local chief procurator Bai Xinchao.

They were among five senior judges arrested recently after the local prosecution office investigated their alleged acts of corruption, the report said.

Previous reports estimated the three had taken bribes amounting to millions of yuan.

A series of raids since May last year led to the arrest of a court vice president and a division head, apart from the three who were sentenced, the report said.

Cai and Zhang allegedly took money from certain auction houses in exchange for appointing them to deal with seized assets in bankruptcy cases. Zhang also allegedly took bribes directly from defendants.

Pei Hongquan, vice president of the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, and Pei’s former wife, Li Huili, a division head, are being investigated, the report said. They were both arrested late September

Recently, China’s chief judge Xiao Yang vowed greater vigilance against rampant corruption.

In his report to the nation’s annual parliamentary session held this month, Xiao said that of the 292 judges who were investigated for corruption last year, 109 had been prosecuted. (Li Dan)