SHIJIAZHUANG - A court in northern China's Hebei province Friday sentenced Zhang Chunjiang, former deputy general manager of China Mobile, the world's largest mobile operator by subscribers, to death with a two-year reprieve for taking bribes.

The Intermediate People's Court of Cangzhou city also ordered the confiscation of Zhang's personal assets and stripped him of his political rights.

The court found that Zhang, 53, took 7.46 million yuan ($1.15 million) in bribes between 1994 and 2009 when he served as deputy director of Liaoning Provincial Postal Administration, general manager of China Netcom Group Corporation Ltd, and Party chief as well as deputy general manager of China Mobile.

Zhang was given a suspended death sentence, meaning the sentence could be commuted to life after two years of good behavior, because he confessed his crimes and all the bribe money had been recovered, according to the court.

Zhang had previous been removed from his official post and expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) for "severe violations of the discipline and the law".