The efforts of Chinese courts in 2006 to crack down on criminal activities helped safeguard national security and social stability, and promoted human rights protection, the country's top justice said yesterday.

In 2006, China's Supreme People's Court handled 3,668 criminal cases, up 14.77 percent from the previous year, said SPC President Xiao Yang in a report delivered to the national legislature for examination.

Local courts at all levels heard and concluded 8.1 million cases in 2006, an increase of 2.07 percent year on year.

About 2,300 of those cases involved state compensation amounting to 34.84 million yuan (US$4.47 million).

Courts across the country tried and concluded 245,254 criminal cases last year involving felonies like murder, robbery, rape and kidnapping, and sentenced 340,715 criminals.

According to the top judge, Chinese courts handled 23,733 cases of embezzlement, bribery and dereliction of duty last year, sentencing 825 convicted government officials above the county level, including nine provincial and ministerial-level officials.

Corruption and commercial bribery have become a prominent social problem in China, arousing public anger and leading to the downfall of a number of high-ranking officials, including former head of the National Statistics Bureau Qiu Xiaohua and former director of the State Food and Drug Administration Zheng Xiaoyu.

Shanghai's former Party chief Chen Liangyu was also put under investigation last year for his involvement in the city's pension fund scandal, in which 3.7 billion yuan (US$475 million) was misused.

Courts across the country in 2006 also tried and concluded 31,582 cases involving the manufacture, trafficking and sale of narcotics, sentencing 37,256 people.

Xiao said Chinese courts concluded 17,769 cases involving intellectual property rights infringement in 2006, with 3,508 people convicted and sentenced.

"Among all criminals convicted in 2006, 153,724 received sentences of five years to life in prison or the death penalty," he told the nearly 3,000 lawmakers attending the annual full session of the NPC.

Xiao also offered his praise for experiments on granting relief funds to poor victims of crime.