Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) – Chen Xitong, former secretary of the Communist Party in Beijing, was released for health reasons after serving eight years of his 16-year jail sentence for corruption. Given his high profile, his case was one of the most closely followed ever across the country.

Also released was former China Everbright Holdings chairman, Zhu Xiaohua, "on medical parole", after four years in prison: he had been sentenced to 15 years, also for corruption.

Anonymous sources close to Chen said the ex-political leader was in a top Beijing military hospital for treatment of an unspecified illness. However, the same sources said it was "unlikely" that Chen would regain full freedom: he will put on parole after he is discharged from hospital.

Chen, 76 years, was a Politburo member and his party post made him China's eighth-ranked leader before he fell into disgrace in 1995 and was arrested in 1998.

In 1995, the Communist leadership sacked Chen as party secretary, saying he was involved in a series of corruption scandals also involving family members and associates, including the former Beijing deputy mayor, Wang Baosen, who later killed himself to avoid trial.

In 1998, Chen was sentenced to 16 years in jail on charges of corruption: many of his supporters insisted he had been handed down a politically motivated sentence, because the ex-secretary backed a faction within the party that was against the policies of the then president, Jiang Zemin.

Zhu, 57, is now in Shanghai, where he first made his mark in the world of banking. He was held to be one of the most brilliant minds in China's financial world before his imprisonment in 2002. Friends of Zhu said he has kept his release a secret, making it known to only a small group of friends and family.

In China, it is quite commonplace to see high-ranking political or economic leaders arrested for corruption and then released for "medical reasons" after three or four years' imprisonment. Chen's release, however, amazed many political analysts, given that the politician had refused several times over to resort to this loophole, insisting he was innocent and not sick.