Former head of China’s ‘kung fu’ temple sentenced to 24 years, state media reports

BEIJING, May 29 (Reuters) – The former abbot of a Chinese temple known as the birthplace of kung fu was sentenced to 24 years in prison and fined 3.5 million yuan ($517,000) for crimes including embezzlement and bribery, state media reported on Friday.

Buddhist monk Shi Yongxin, 60, was charged in March this year after being put under investigation last July.

A court in central China’s Henan province handed down the sentence, saying Shi abused his position at the Shaolin Temple to embezzle, misappropriate and give and receive bribes worth nearly 300 million yuan over nearly three decades.

Shi pleaded guilty and said he would not appeal in court, state media reported.

The Shaolin Temple said last July that its head monk was under joint investigation by multiple agencies for suspected crimes such as embezzlement and violating Buddhist tenets by maintaining inappropriate relationships with multiple women over a long period of time.

Shi’s monastic certificate was quickly revoked by the Chinese Buddhist Association amid the investigation. The association responded to Shi’s sentence in a statement on Friday, saying he “brought this crime upon himself.”

Shi, known as Liu Yingcheng before becoming a monk in 1981, had led the temple since 1987 and became its abbot in 1999.

($1 = 6.7665 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Shi Bu and Liz Lee; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Helen Popper)