A former police chief who revealed China’s biggest political scandal in two decades admitted defection and did not contest charges of taking bribes and illegal surveillance at his two-day trial ending yesterday, a court official said.
Wang Lijun (王立軍), ex-police chief of Chongqing municipality, sought to conceal the murder of a British businessman by the wife of one of the nation’s most senior and ambitious politicians, Bo Xilai (薄熙來), an account of the trial said.
Foreign reporters were barred from attending the trial amid tight security around the courthouse.
A spokesman for the Chengdu Intermediate Court read out a statement to reporters at in a nearby hotel, but no mention was made of Bo.
“The accused Wang Lijun voluntarily gave himself up after committing the crime of defection, and then gave a truthful account of the main crimes involved in his defection,” court spokesman Yang Yuguan said.
However, the official statement said Wang, who was shown on state television looking relaxed during the hearing, exposed leads to major crimes committed by unnamed others.
The charges against Wang carry sentences ranging from a lengthy jail term to life in prison and the death penalty. Sentencing is expected within 10 days.
“The accused Wang Lijun voluntarily gave himself up after committing the crime of defection, and then gave a truthful account of the main crimes involved in his defection,” the official statement published by state media said. “The accused Wang Lijun exposed leads concerning major criminal offences by others, and played an important role in investigating and dealing with the cases concerned.”
Wang’s trial was closely watched for any evidence that Bo had ordered Wang to cover up his wife’s involvement in the murder — a sign that Bo himself could be next to face trial. So far, Bo has only been accused of breaching internal party discipline.
The Bo scandal has rocked Beijing, exposing rifts within the party — elements of which are strong supporters of Bo’s populist, left-leaning policies — at a time when China is preparing for a once-in-a-decade leadership change.
Wang, 52, lifted the lid on the murder and cover-up of a British businessman in February when he went to a US consulate and, according to sources, told envoys there about the murder that would later bring down Bo.
Within two months of Wang’s 24-hour visit to the consulate, Bo was sacked as party boss and from the Chinese Communist Party’s politburo and Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai (谷開來), was accused of poisoning the businessman. Gu has since been given a suspended death sentence for the killing late last year.
Wang’s trial started on Monday in the city of Chengdu, the city where Wang staged his dramatic flight to the US consulate, with an unannounced closed-door session to hear charges of defection and abuse of power, Xinhua news agency said.
An “open trial” to hear charges of bribe taking and “bending the law for selfish ends” was held yesterday, Xinhua said. However, the trial remained behind closed doors in the imposing, gray stone Chengdu City Intermediate People’s Court.
The prosecutors said Wang “clearly knew that Bogu Kailai was a major suspect in a case of intentional homicide, and deliberately concealed that so she would not be prosecuted.” Bogu is the official, but rarely used surname of Bo Xilai’s wife.
However, Wang decided to later reopen the investigation.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
RSS