Related News
Life sentence as court declares Bo Xilai guilty
Print Edition
Ousted senior politician Bo Xilai was found guilty of corruption yesterday and sentenced to life in prison.
The former member of the Party’s Political Bureau and Chongqing City’s Party leader was convicted of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power in a case set in motion by his wife’s poisoning of a British business associate.
The Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern city of Jinan also deprived Bo of his political rights for life and confiscated all his personal assets, including a villa in France.
“Bo Xilai was a servant of the state, he abused his power, causing huge damage to the country and its people ... The circumstances were especially serious,” the court said in its judgment.
Bo, 64, launched a vigorous defense at his trial last month, denying all charges and blaming the corruption on others in his inner circle.
But the court found him guilty of taking bribes totaling 20.44 million yuan (about US$3.3 million), either personally or through family members, between 1999 and 2012, during which time he served as mayor of Dalian in northeast Liaoning Province, Dalian’s Party chief, governor of Liaoning and Commerce Minister.
In return, the court said, Bo helped Dalian International Development Co Ltd, of which Tang Xiaolin was general manager, to take over the Dalian City liaison office in Shenzhen and also helped Tang obtain quota licenses for importing cars.
It also said that Bo granted Xu Ming, chairman of Dalian Shide Group Co Ltd, favors in the company’s introduction of a sightseeing hot-air balloon and in its bid for a petrochemical project.
The court found that Bo directly accepted cash totaling 1.1 million yuan from Tang and said he was aware of and showed no objection to his wife, Bogu Kailai, and their son, Bo Guagua, accepting money and property worth 19.33 million yuan from Xu.
While Party chief of Dalian in 2000, the court said, Bo assigned Wang Zhenggang, then urban planning chief, to take charge of a project to be built by Dalian for an unidentified higher authority. In March 2002, after the project was completed, the higher authority allocated 5 million yuan to refund the project. Wang proposed that Bo, who had moved to become governor of Liaoning, use the money for family expenses. Bo asked Wang to approach his wife over the matter, the court said, and the 5 million yuan was eventually transferred to an account designated by Bogu.
The court judgment said that on November 13, 2011, Bogu and Zhang Xiaojun murdered British citizen Neil Heywood by poisoning him at the Lucky Holiday Hotel in Chongqing.
On January 28 last year, Wang Lijun, then Chongqing’s police chief and vice mayor, told Bo that his wife was a suspect.
In his bid to prevent a review of the Heywood case, the court said, Bo violated procedures and removed Wang Lijun from his position as police chief.
After Wang’s defection to the US Consulate General in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province on February 6, Bo allowed his wife to take part in official meetings about the case, and sanctioned her suggestion of asking a hospital to fake a diagnosis that Wang suffered from mental illness. Bo also approved release of false information that Wang was receiving “vacation-style treatment.”
The verdict said Bo’s actions were important reasons behind Wang’s defection and why the Heywood case was not handled in a timely and legal manner.
The court said the charges against Bo were supported by testimony from witnesses including Tang Xiaolin, Xu Ming, Bogu Kailai, Wang Zhenggang and Wang Lijun, as well as physical evidence.
The court excluded 1.34 million yuan from the charges, saying there was not enough evidence to support a charge that Xu Ming paid that for air tickets for Bogu and Bo Guagua and that Bo was aware of this.
The illicit money and goods that Bo accepted as bribes or embezzled had been recovered or compensated for, the court said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
