A court in China said on Monday it had sentenced a former justice minister to life in prison after finding him guilty of accepting bribes totalling almost $20 million over more than a decade.

Tang Yijun, 64, was China’s justice minister from 2020 to 2023 and held various other positions during his career, including governor of Liaoning province and head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for the city of Ningbo.

President Xi Jinping has waged a sweeping anti-corruption purge since coming to power in 2012, a crackdown that critics say allows him to eliminate potential political rivals.

Tang abused “the advantages associated with the positions he successively held” to “obtain benefits for various entities and individuals” between 2006 and 2022, the Xiamen Intermediate People’s Court in eastern China said in a statement.

In exchange for payment, the former official helped individuals and companies with initial public offerings, securing bank loans, acquiring land and other matters, the court said.

Tang received a total of 137 million yuan ($19.7 million), it said.

The “particularly high” amount of bribes caused “extremely serious damage to the interests of the state and the people”, the statement said.

However, the court said it had taken into account mitigating circumstances such as the fact that Tang confessed after his arrest, expressed remorse, pleaded guilty and cooperated with the investigation.

Another former Chinese justice minister, Fu Zhenghua, was convicted of corruption in 2022. He received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve, after which the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Authorities announced last month that they were launching an anti-corruption probe into China’s most powerful general, Zhang Youxia. He is the highest-ranking military figure to be brought down in recent decades.