(05-28) 04:14 PDT BEIJING, China (AP) --
China's ruling Communist Party on Monday expelled a former railways minister who had overseen a massive expansion of high-speed rail, accusing him of taking bribes and fostering major corruption throughout the country's railway system.
The announcement came more than a year after Liu Zhijun was dismissed from his government post amid graft allegations.
The party's discipline body said Liu had taken massive bribes and abused his authority to help a private businessman make huge illegal profits, according to the website of the official party newspaper People's Daily. It also accused him of "degenerate morals," a term that often refers to sexual liaisons and the keeping of mistresses.
Liu's case file will now be forwarded to prosecutors, who will formally charge him. Getting kicked out of the Communist Party virtually guarantees a conviction.
Liu was railways minister for eight years, far exceeding the usual term for a minister. He accumulated vast wealth and power while in office, especially during a headlong rush to extend the bullet train network nationwide.
High-speed rail was a national prestige project aimed at showing off China's technological prowess and rising wealth while linking its far-flung regions.
But the bullet train network came under heated criticism following a crash last July that killed 40 people in the eastern city of Wenzhou. In the wake of the accident, the government was forced to lower the speed of trains amid criticism that the system was dangerously fast and too expensive.
Allegations of kickbacks, bribes, illegal contracts and other malfeasance had circulated around Liu for years, but the ministry's outsize influence and his own personal authority seemed to shield him from formal accusations.
The government has since crimped the Railways Ministry's powers, cutting back on investment as funding grew tight and putting railways-related court cases in most regions under the jurisdiction of civilian courts, rather than the railway court system.
Bidding on railway projects was also recently brought in line with procedures for other government public works.
State media said that was intended to ensure fairness and transparency and prevent officials from meddling in project bidding or engaging in influence peddling or collusion.
Monday's reports gave no word on the fate of another senior official, Zhang Shuguang, an engineer in charge of research and development of the country's high-speed railways, who was removed alongside Liu for unnamed disciplinary violations.
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