He has been deprived of his political rights for life and had all his personal assets confiscated, a court statement said.
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Another deputy PLA’s Logistics Department is also under investigation. Lieutenant general Gu had a taste for expensive, shiny objects-a boat made of gold, a golden wash basin, and a pure gold statue of Chairman Mao were found among his possessions. The sentence has been suspended for two years and is then likely to be commuted to life imprisonment.
Gu accumulated wealth through the sale of military land, and had collected 6 percent of $321.8 million in land sales in Shanghai.
Besides owning a vast properties, his home in Henan province modelled on China’s former imperial palace Forbidden City with several gold art pieces or statues.
China has for years sought to clean up corruption that has been seen as weakening the military’s moral and fighting ability.
This follows the sacking of Guo Boxiong.
China intensified its crackdown on corruption in the military in the late 1990s, banning the People’s Liberation Army from engaging in business.
According to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, Gu’s detention marked the beginning of China’s campaign against graft in the military.
After assuming office in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a large-scale campaign against corruption, targeting primarily high-level officials in the Communist Party, the armed forces and state-run enterprises. Since he took over, Xi has been keen that the military should weeded out of corrupt officials while ordering massive realtime drills to win wars.
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Gu Junshan, the former deputy logistics chief of the People’s Liberation Army, was charged with embezzlement, bribery and misuse of state funds. Xu Caihou, the other former vice chair of the Central Military Commission, was investigated last year, and recently died from bladder cancer before he could be prosecuted.
