A total of six former ministerial- level officials were sentenced on charges of job-related crimes last year, China's chief justice Xiao Yang said Wednesday, pledging intensified efforts to continue cracking down on corrupt officials according to law.

The six former high-ranking officials were former governor of Yunnan Province Li Jiating, former vice chairman of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Pan Guangtian, former president of the Liaoning Provincial Higher People's Court Tian Fengqi, former deputy governor of Hebei Province Cong Fukui, former deputy governor of Zhejiang Province Wang Zhongli, and former governor of the China Construction Bank Wang Xuebing.

The penalties on them range from death sentence with a reprieve, life imprisonment, to 12 and 15 years behind bars, according to previous reports.

They were among of a group of 458 government workers sentenced on the same charges, said Xiao, president of the Supreme People's Court.

The court handled a total of 22,986 cases involving government workers' job-related crimes last year, he said in his report on the Supreme Court's work at the annual session of the National People's Congress, the Chinese version of parliament.

The fight against corruption was intensified this year. In the latest case last month, former deputy governor of Anhui Province Wang Huaizhong was executed for accepting more than five million yuan of bribery and another 4.8 million yuan of assets which he could not offer legal claim.

Within the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), six former ministerial-level officials were also punished by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. What awaits them is punishment according to law.