Bo Guagua didn’t respond to an email request for comment about his mother’s trial
BEIJING—Prosecutors indicted the wife of Bo Xilai, the fallen Chinese politician, on charges of murdering a British businessman, setting the stage for China's most sensational criminal trial in 30 years.
An investigation has found that Mr. Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, poisoned Neil Heywood with the help of a family aide, believing the Briton threatened her son's safety following a financial dispute, the state-run Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.
The announcement suggests that the Communist Party leadership has reached a consensus on how to handle the murder case at the core of China's worst political crisis since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Chinese leaders, now gathering for an annual summer conclave, are thought to be anxious to draw a line under the scandal ahead of a once-a-decade leadership change in the fall, diplomats and analysts say.
Andy Wong/Associated PressRising star Bo Xilai was fired from his party post in April and his wife, Gu Kailai, named a suspect in the death of a British businessman close to the family who was found dead in a Chongqing hotel.
Mr. Heywood, who was close to the Bo family, was found dead in November in his hotel room in Chongqing, the southwestern city where Mr. Bo was Communist Party chief at the time. Police said he died of excessive alcohol consumption and cremated his body without autopsy, but an investigation was launched after the city's just-fired police chief took refuge in a U.S. consulate in February and claimed Ms. Gu had poisoned Mr. Heywood.
Thursday's dispatch was the first official update since the Chinese government said in April that Ms. Gu was in custody as a murder suspect and that Mr. Bo had been suspended from all of his party posts.
The report gave no explicit indication how officials plan to deal with Mr. Bo, who was once a candidate for the top leadership group but is now under investigation for "serious disciplinary violations."
Some experts on Chinese law and politics said Ms. Gu's indictment suggested the leadership could soon say whether Mr. Bo will also face charges, in relation to her case or to his policies in Chongqing.
Ms. Gu and the aide, Zhang Xiaojun, were charged "recently" in the city of Hefei with intentional homicide, Xinhua said, adding that a local court had accepted the case and was choosing a trial date. Xinhua didn't say when the indictment took place or why it was in Hefei rather than Chongqing.
The Chongqing Drama
See key dates in the mysterious death of Neil Heywood in the Chinese city of Chongqing and the drama surrounding Bo Xilai.
Neither Mr. Bo nor Ms. Gu has been reachable for comment on the allegations since April, nor has the aide, Mr. Zhang. A lawyer Ms. Gu's family had employed, Shen Zhigeng, said her trial was likely to start on Aug. 7 or 8, Reuters reported.
Legal experts and historians said it was likely to be the most closely watched and politically charged trial since that of Chairman Mao Zedong's widow, Jiang Qing, and the rest of the so-called Gang of Four in 1980-81.
Mr. Bo, whose father was a famed revolutionary leader, was one of China's most charismatic politicians and still enjoys strong support in the party's upper echelon, as well as the rank and file, because of his populist leadership style. Ms. Gu is also from a prestigious party family. She became famous in China after writing a book, which was made into a TV series, about winning a civil suit in the U.S.
Nonetheless, she is almost certain to be found guilty, given China's conviction rate of around 98%, said experts on Chinese law and politics. "The wording suggests the only issue to be decided is the sentence," said Flora Sapio, a specialist on Chinese criminal law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
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Gu Kailai in 1997 But the mention, for the first time, of Ms. Gu fearing for her son's safety might be preparing the ground for a life sentence or suspended death sentence rather than execution, which is common in China's murder cases, she added.
Courtroom drama is unlikely, as Chinese trials today, unlike that one, rarely last more than a few days and are largely closed to the media. They sometimes don't involve the appearance of witnesses or presentation of individual pieces of evidence.
Any information on the proceedings to come out will be devoured by a huge Chinese Internet audience that has been circumventing Web controls to read foreign media reports on the scandal and spreading details via fast-moving Chinese microblogs that work like Twitter.
Xinhua identified Ms. Gu's son only by the surname Bo. She and her husband have only one son, Bo Guagua, who recently graduated from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and is believed by family friends to still be in the U.S. Bo Guagua didn't respond to an email request for comment.
Friends of Mr. Heywood say he told them he became part of Ms. Gu's inner circle while living in the northeastern city of Dalian in the 1990s when Mr. Bo was mayor there. Ms. Gu is godmother to a daughter of Mr. Heywood, said one friend.
Mr. Heywood acted as a fixer for the family, brokering meetings with visiting businesspeople. He helped arrange Bo Guagua's education in Britain at the exclusive private school Harrow, which Mr. Heywood had attended, according to his friends.
The relationship soured after about 2009 as Ms. Gu, who friends say suffered from depression, became convinced she was being betrayed by someone in her inner circle, according to some of Mr. Heywood's friends.
Associated PressIn this January 2007 file photo, Bo Xilai, right, and wife Gu Kailai attend a funeral for his father in Beijing.
Several have expressed doubt that he was involved in a dispute over a major business transaction with the Bo family.
"He was not a banker or a lawyer, so I don't see how he could have helped them transfer hundreds of millions overseas," said a close friend, referring to one story that has circulated.
Another member of Ms. Gu's circle, a French architect called Patrick Henri Devillers, flew back to China last week from his adopted home of Cambodia, where he had been detained for weeks at Beijing's request.
He is being held under a form of house arrest after striking a deal with judicial authorities handling Ms. Gu's case, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Devillers shared a residential address with Ms. Gu in the southern British seaside resort of Bournemouth between 2000 and 2003, according to British public records.
Ms. Gu's indictment was welcomed by the British government, which said in late March that it had asked central Chinese authorities to investigate Mr. Heywood's death after suspicions were raised by members of the British community in China.
"We're pleased that Chinese authorities have taken this case to trial and we're determined to seek justice for Neil Heywood and his family," a spokesman for the British embassy said. He said the embassy had asked if British diplomats could attend the trial but didn't know of the response.
Friends of Mr. Heywood have questioned why British diplomats didn't raise concerns with Chongqing authorities sooner, given his ties to the Bo family and the circumstances of his death. Britain asked China to investigate only after being told by U.S. authorities of allegations about the death made by Wang Lijun, the fired Chongqing police chief, in the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in early February, said people familiar with the matter.
Thursday's Xinhua report made no mention of Mr. Wang, who was taken into custody by Chinese state security officials after leaving the consulate.
Source: WSJ
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