Bo likely to face prison for protecting wife from murder charges
Bo Xilai is likely to face criminal trial for trying to protect his wife from murder charges, analysts said on Thursday, after his former police chief was tried for defection.
Fallen Chinese politician Bo Xilai is likely to face criminal trial for trying to protect his wife from murder charges, analysts said on Thursday, after his former police chief was tried for defection.
But they said the man who was once one of China’s most-high profile politicians, tipped for a place on the country’s top decision-making body, was likely to escape more serious accusations and would probably be imprisoned.
The comments came after the state-run news agency Xinhua released a detailed and lengthy report on the trial of Wang Lijun, Bo’s former right-hand man, for defection, bribery and other offences.
It said Wang briefed the “main person responsible” for the Chongqing Communist party committee – which Bo headed – about the suspected role of the politician’s wife Gu Kailai in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.
Wang was later rebuked and fled to the US consulate in Chengdu seeking asylum, blowing the scandal wide open and triggering Bo’s fall from grace, while exposing deep divisions in China’s ruling communist party.
Bo has not been seen in public for months.
The Xinhua account did not mention Bo by name, but implicitly raised the possibility that he could be charged with sheltering a criminal, which carries a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison.
