China installed its top police official as the country's head prosecutor on Sunday, elevating a man with a tough-sheriff reputation and experience cracking down on Falun Gong, the spiritual movement targeted by the government as an "evil cult."
Jia Chunwang, 64, a native of Beijing, was chosen by the largely ceremonial National People's Congress by a vote of 2,807 to 58 with 73 abstentions.
Jia has been public security minister, China's top police official, since 1998. He also is political commissar of the People's Armed Police, a paramilitary force run by the Defense Ministry whose riot troops are called on to quell major protests. That force also guards foreign diplomatic compounds.
His appointment comes as government and Communist Party efforts to crack down on crime and corruption are facing growing skepticism by the public.
Jia's public face is that of an uncompromising lawman who has called for resolute action against corruption and drug trafficking.
But his term also included a series of high-profile incidents that prompted a public outcry, including an explosion that destroyed a schoolhouse in southern China in early 2001 and killed at least 42 people, most of them children.
That disaster prompted former Premier Zhu Rongji to issue a stunning public apology on national television for the government's failure to ensure the safety of the Chinese populace.
Jia's responsibilities include police forces that have played key roles in the crackdown on Falun Gong and other spiritual movements banned by Beijing in recent years as a threat to public safety and communist rule.
Activists accuse Chinese law enforcement officials of killing 610 detained Falun Gong followers. Officials acknowledge some people have died in detention, but deny mistreating anyone and say the deaths were due to hunger strikes or detainees who refused medical help.
Like new President Hu Jintao, Jia is an engineer trained at elite Tsinghua University in Beijing. He was sent to the countryside for manual labor from 1966 to 1972 during China's Cultural Revolution, when many educated urbanites were purged and mistreated.
Also Sunday, the current judge of China's supreme court, Xiao Yang, was reappointed to his post.