CALL me a lecher but don't call me a crook, an ex-city official at the heart of a Chinese sex tape scandal has said in his unusually spirited courtroom defence against corruption charges.
The case of Lei Zhengfu, former party chief of a district in the southern city of Chongqing, has riveted the Chinese public since video clips went viral of the portly 55-year-old having sex with a woman hired by property developers allegedly in an elaborate extortion scheme.
In a country where corruption trials of high-level officials typically look like the scripted outcome of backdoor bargaining, Lei's case has offered a rare look at what happens when a lower-level official is caught in a high-profile crackdown - with few political cards to play.
Lei is accused of accepting more than 3 million yuan ($A541,560) in bribes from a developer to pay off a businessman who was allegedly using the tape to blackmail him. Lei rejects the charge of bribery, saying the money was a loan.
"Although I'm quite lecherous, I'm not greedy for money," he said in a Chongqing court Wednesday, reading out a personal statement.
Public anger and disgust over official corruption found an easy target in the images of his jowly, pop-eyed face in the throes of passion. Lei was soon fired from his post, and in ensuing weeks, more tapes were found, felling 11 other Chongqing officials.
The scandal has exposed in lurid detail the shady intertwining of sex, business and politics in Chinese society at a time when a newly installed generation of Communist Party leadership has vowed to crack down on widespread graft. It also tapped into public outrage over what is seen as the moral degradation of the country's leaders.
"The people's hatred of official corruption is not only because of their illegal behaviour but because of resentment that they enjoy a special status that is higher than others and lets them enjoy more social resources," said Liu Shanying, a politics researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. "They hope to see them punished by the law, which would help them vent that anger."
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