Beijing mayor denies city under graft probe -report

BEIJING, Sep 30 (Reuters) Beijing's mayor has dismissed as ''nonsense'' reports that the Chinese capital has been targeted by a massive corruption investigation after a crackdown on graft in financial hub Shanghai, Hong Kong media reported today.

Mayor Wang Qishan told visiting Hong Kong media executives that widespread reports of 300 anti-corruption investigators probing the city's affairs were untrue, according to a mainland-backed Hong Kong paper, the Wen Wei Po.

''A month or two ago, tabloid papers in the mainland had reports like that. Beijing cleared that up at the time. Now the Hong Kong media are reheating it, but it's all nonsense,'' Wang said.

The mayor said the city would give a full response to the reports today, another mainland-backed Hong Kong paper, Ta Kung Pao, reported.

Wang's denial came almost a week after China's ruling Communist Party leadership sacked the party chief of Shanghai, Chen Liangyu, for channelling pension funds into illegal investments and helping enrich crony companies and relatives.

Shanghai officials said on Thursday that Sun Luyi, director of the Shanghai Party Committee's General Office -- the city leadership's administrative engine -- was under investigation.

Today, a Chinese business newspaper, the 21st Century Business Herald, reported that Sun was accused of taking bribes from a wealthy Shanghai businessman, Zhang Rongkun. Zhang bribed over 20 people, the report said.

Mainland observers and Kong Kong media have said Chinese President Hu Jintao's drive to root out official abuses and enforce loyalty may ripple to other parts of China, including Beijing, the nation's political heart and host of the 2008 Olympic Games.

In June, Liu Zhihua, a Beijing vice-mayor who oversaw construction for the olympics, was dismissed after being accused of corruption and dissolute behaviour, and a succession of provincial officials have also faced dismissal or jail.

Yesterday in Beijing, the former chairman of the state-owned China Construction Bank, Zhang Enzhao, went on trial on charges of taking bribes worth 4.15 million yuan (525,000 dollars), the Beijing News reported today.

Zhang confessed to taking bribes in return for commercial favours, but his lawyer maintained Zhang had turned himself in and took illegal earnings of just 1.50 million yuan (190,000 dollars).

There was no verdict announced.

REUTERS MQA RAI1009