A Chinese military court handed suspended death sentences to two former defence ministers for corruption on Thursday, state media said, in President Xi Jinping’s latest push to root out graft.

They are the harshest sentences that Beijing has meted out on high-ranking military officials as part of Xi’s sweeping anti-corruption purge since coming to power in 2012.

The sentences against Wei Fenghe, 72, and Li Shangfu, 68, will be “commuted to life imprisonment” after a two-year reprieve, the Xinhua state news agency reported.

The ex-ministers, who served between 2018 and 2023, were also former members of China’s powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) , which oversees the military and is headed by Xi.

They also appeared regularly on television along with other officials.

Wei was convicted of accepting bribes and Li was convicted of accepting and offering bribes, Xinhua said.

The pair were also stripped of their political rights for life as well as their personal property.

Adam Ni, editor of China Neican, a newsletter on Chinese current affairs, said the ruling against Wei and Li was “pretty extraordinary”.

“A death sentence with a two-year reprieve is actually the strongest punishment China gives to its high level leaders nowadays,” he told AFP. “It’s a loud message from Xi.” Wei and Li are the latest military officials to fall in Xi’s anti-corruption purge that has focused on the armed forces in recent years, with several top generals removed.