NANJING - A former senior official of North China's Hebei province was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined 5 million yuan for taking bribes by a court in East China's Jiangsu province on Thursday.

Zhang Yue, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and former secretary of the CPC's Hebei provincial committee for political and legal affairs, was convicted of accepting bribes of 156.9 million yuan ($23.53 million) personally or through persons of interest, said the Intermediate People's Court of Changzhou City.

The court found that from 2008 to 2016, Zhang took the advantage of his positions to seek profits from organizations and individuals involved in land development projects, projects contracting, handlding of relevant cases, and personal promotions.

Although he took a huge amount of bribes and "caused severe damages to the interest of the state and people," Zhang turned himself in, fully confessed, provided leads on other criminal cases, and returned the majority of the bribes, which constituted mitigation of sentence, the court said.

Zhang decided not to appeal.