The corruption trial of the former head of CNPC, China's top energy group, the parent company of PetroChina Limited, began Monday.

Jiang Jiemin was accused of accepting bribes, possessing a large number of assets from unidentified sources and abuse of power last month. He was the chairman of Asia's biggest oil producer before being appointed to the Cabinet body in 2013 that oversees China's biggest state-run companies.

He was fired from that position five months later, after he came was investigated for charges of bribery, abuse of power and other corrupt practices.

He appeared in the Hanjiang Intermediate court in Hubei Province on Monday. State television showed pictures of standing in the dock with two policemen at his side.

Many senior figures in the ruling Communist Party, the military and state-owned enterprises have also been caught in President Xi Jinping's two-year war on corruption.

Jiang was a close associate of Zhou Yongkang, the once-powerful domestic security chief and member of the elite Politburo Standing Committee. He is the most senior person to have been charged with corruption.

Zhou was a patron of former high-flying politician Bo Xilai, who was jailed for life in 2013 for corruption and abuse of power in the worst political scandal in decades.

Zhou was accused of crimes ranging from taking bribes to leaking state secrets and was arrested last and expelled from the party last year. He will be tried in Tianjin, a city close to Beijing.

In its official microblog, the court said that Jiang did not express any objections to the facts about the crimes he is accused of. The evidence was provided by both defense and the prosecution.