China ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang charged

China's former security chief Zhou Yongkang has been charged with bribery, abuse of power and the intentional disclosure of state secrets, state media report.

Before he retired in 2012, Mr Zhou was the head of China's vast internal security apparatus.

But an investigation into him was announced in July 2014 and he has since been expelled from the Communist Party.

He is the most senior official to be targeted in decades.

Mr Zhou's case had been sent to a court in Tianjin, a northern port city, Xinhua news agency reported.

The head of China's top court said last month he would have an "open trial", though no date has been announced.

In a brief statement, China's top prosecution body said that the allegations against Mr Zhou were "extraordinarily severe".

"The defendant Zhou Yongkang... took advantage of his posts to seek gains for others and illegally took huge property and assets from others, abused his power, causing huge losses to public property and the interests of the state and the people," it said.

Network targeted

The former security tsar, who is in his 70s, was one of the most powerful men in China.

He was previously one of nine members of China's top decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee. It has since shrunk to seven members.

But Mr Zhou has not been seen in public since late 2013, when rumours that he was being investigated began to swirl.

A number of his former associates from his time both in the oil industry and as Communist Party chief in Sichuan province are already being investigated or prosecuted as part of President Xi Jinping's corruption crackdown.

His former protege, former Chongqing Communist Party chief and high-flyer Bo Xilai, is currently in prison on charges linked to his wife's murder of a UK businessman.

Analysts say the investigation into Mr Zhou allows Xi Jinping - who took office as president in March 2013 - to consolidate his power base, remove people opposed to his reforms and improve the image of the Communist Party.

Timeline: Zhou Yongkang

1942: Born in Wu Xi city in eastern Jiangsu province

1964: Joins the Communist Party and spends the next 32 years in the oil sector

1998: Becomes party secretary of China National Petroleum Corporation

1999: Appointed party secretary of Sichuan

2002: Appointed member of the Politburo at the 16th Party Congress; becomes minister of public security later that year

2007: Further promoted to member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo - China's highest state organ

2012: His lieutenants begin to get sacked and investigated; he appears with Bo Xilai at Chinese National People's Congress session

December 2013: His son Zhou Bin is arrested on corruption charges

December 2014: Arrested, expelled from party.