Zhou has been accused of leaking state secrets, secret documents of the party besides adultery, corruption and abuse of power.

Zhou headed the country's internal security apparatus in the previous Hu Jintao regime.

READ ALSO:

China ex-security chief's fall cements Xi's grip on power

BEIJING: Chinese prosecutors have made sure that the court considers giving former security czar Zhou Yongkang a death sentence or at least the sentence of death with a reprieve. This has been done by adding the charge of sedition to the list of other allegations that including corruption and moral turpitude.If that happens, the prosecutors will be creating history because no leader of such high rank, who has been a member of the powerful political standing committee of the Chinese Communist Party, has been given a death sentence in the past.Zhou, 72, who headed the country's internal security apparatus in the previous Hu Jintao regime, has been accused of leaking state secrets, secret documents of the party besides adultery, corruption and abuse of power.A important question is whether the government will opt for an open trail as in the case of his protege, Bo Xilai. Bo got a death sentence with reprieve but used the open trail and media coverage to garner sympathy for himself. He was accused of corruption and abuse of power but spared the charge of sedition."There has been an understanding in the leadership over the past few decades that the maximum punishment for corrupt senior officials is a death sentence with a few years' probation," Zhang Ming, a political science professor at the Renmin University was quoted in South China Morning Post as saying.Political observers also said that a death sentence to Zhou will fully consolidate and solidify the position of Xi Jinping, the party general secretary and China's president beyond all doubt. The previous president Hu had not fully consolidated his position because of challenges faced by him from a group led by another former president, Jiang Zemin.Full details of the charge of sedition and disloyalty to the party have not been made public. But sources said Zhou may have leaked some secrets to influence the process of succession in the party just before the election of Xi as the general secretary by communist elders.