Former top officials with China Southern Airlines Group made their first appearance in court on Monday, October 16, to face corruption charges that have seen them in detention since last year.

The charges involve bribery and embezzlement of more than 1.2 billion yuan (US$151 million), Xinhua news agency cited prosecutors as saying at Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court.

Former officials involved in the case include finance department director Chen Liming, vice general manager Peng Anfa, general manager Yan Zhiqing and Han Xiaojun, the Guangzhou branch director of Hantang Securities.

The group is the parent of Guangzhou's New York-listed China Southern Airlines, the Chinese mainland's biggest air carrier in terms of fleet. The company is also listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Defendants Chen, Peng and Han were in the court.Prosecutors alleged Chen took bribes of 53.7 million yuan, stole company funds of 12.3 million yuan and embezzled 1.2 billion yuan from 2001 to last year through misconduct in a collective asset management business with Hantang Securities.

About 300 million yuan of the embezzled funds was associated with former vice general manager Peng. The fund, which was illegally given to Han under permission from Peng's, had not been returned to the China Southern Airlines Group, prosecutors said.

According to the charges, Chen, Peng and Yan conspired in August 2001 to embezzle the group's bank loans to invest in collective asset management businesses with fixed returns in the name of the group company.

Yan allegedly authorized Chen to borrow from the bank and signed agreements with securities firms on the investments. Peng helped oversee the process, prosecutors said.

Chen allegedly allocated 4.4 billion yuan for the transactions at Hantang Securities and Century Securities between August 2001 and June last year.

Chen allegedly took a large number of bribes from the two securities firms in the name of "consulting fees," and stole proceeds from the investments.

He was also charged with embezzling bank loans for personal or friends' use. Peng was personally involved in some of the cases, prosecutors said.

The second court hearing was in two weeks, prosecutors said.

In a statement last year, China Southern Airlines said the alleged misconduct was personal that had nothing to do with the company and would not influence its operations.