A former research team leader involved with Shanghai's pilot free trade zone admitted bribery charges at his trial at the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate Peoples' Court yesterday.

Wan Zengwei admitted taking bribes of up to 5.96 million yuan (US$977,754) when he was deputy director and then head of the Pudong New Area Comprehensive Planning and Land Authority between 1996 and 2000. The court didn't reach a verdict yesterday.

Wan, 64, told the court that he befriended a real estate company manager surnamed Gu in 1999 when the latter planned to complete construction of an unfinished building, eastday.com reported.

In 2008, Gu employed Wan as a company consultant at a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan and paid 1 million yuan for Wan's furniture, the court heard.

Later, Gu raised Wan's pay to 100,000 yuan per month. Gu also set up a company in Hong Kong and placed Wan's wife as board chairwoman although she didn't work there.

Wan stopped accepting Gu's money from March this year after he heard the Party disciplinary watchdog was investigating him, eastday.com reported.

Wan had also been Party chief of the Shanghai Provident Fund Management Center. He was still holding the post of director of the Pudong Academy of Reform and Development and a board member of a listed company, Zhangjiang High-Tech Park Development Co Ltd, in May.

On June 4, netizen Xinghuocaijing wrote a post on microblogging site weibo.com, China's equivalent of Twitter, saying Wan was placed under "double designation," an investigation procedure in which Party members are ordered to confess or explain wrongdoings at a designated time and in a designated place. But authorities didn't confirm it.

Several days later, Zhangjiang High-Tech Park Development Co Ltd announced the removal of Wan from his post as board member due to ''personal reasons.''

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