Asia-Pacific News

Chinese anti-corruption official sacked for Russian tryst

Apr 12, 2007, 11:27 GMT

Beijing - A Communist Party official who was a top provincial campaigner against corruption has been sacked after he was caught in a hotel room with a Russian prostitute, the party's official newspaper said on Thursday.

Du Xiangcheng was expelled from the party and sacked from his post as deputy secretary of the party's Commission for Discipline Inspection in the central province of Hunan, People's Daily and other state media reported.

Du was found 'in a compromising situation with a Russian woman' at a five-star hotel while he was in Beijing on official business last December.

The party's central discipline commission has also opened an investigation into Du's assets and financial dealings, the reports said.

Du had cemented a reputation as a stalwart campaigner against corruption through a case against the head of discipline inspection in Hunan's Changde city in 2004.

'Cadres are only human and they have desires, so all leading cadres should be able to handle such tests,' Du told the official Xinhua news agency during the investigation into the Changde case.

Many Russian prostitutes work in Beijing and other large cities in China, where prostitution has become rampant over the last 15 years.