China: Disgraced Politician Bo Xilai Calls Former Aide A Liar As Trial Continues

Bo Xilai The trial of Bo Xilai, the disgraced Chinese
politician, has been adjourned until Monday
following an unscheduled third day of
revelations and politically charged
accusations. So far the trial under way in Jinan, in
Shandong province, has been made very
public, with each side attempting to
discredit the other. Before the court adjourned on Sunday, Bo, a
former Communist Party politburo member
and party leader of Chongqing, also sought
to discredit his former top aide as a liar and
an unreliable witness. He told the Jinan Intermediate People’s
Court that his former right-hand man Wang
Lijun, the Chongqing police chief , “was a
person of very vile quality who first, lied in
court, and secondly, muddied the waters”. Wang claims that he told Bo about his wife
Gu Kailai’s involvement in the murder of
Neil Heywood, a British businessman, and
Bo reacted furiously and punched him. Wang says he then fled to a US consulate
for protection. Wang said he believed Bo had ordered an
investigation into the police officers
involved in the murder case to try to shield
Gu. Bo denied trying to cover up the murder,
and in questioning Wang forced him to
respond that the police chief had known in
advance of Gu’s intentions to carry out the
crime. For covering up the murder and other
offences, Wang was sentenced last year to
15 years in prison. At the close of Sunday morning’s hearing,
the court said all evidence had been
presented and that the trial was adjourned
till Monday. On the trial’s third day, on Saturday, Bo
called his wife “crazy”, dismissing her
testimony against him as vengeance for the
fact he had been unfaithful. He also told the court that his wife stole $
800,000 of government funds without his
involvement after he had cheated on her. He rejected prosecution claims that he
knew his wife, Gu Kailai, was taking the
money in 2000 when she moved to England
with their son, Bo Guagua, following
revelations of Bo’s affair with a 20-
something secretary. Bo told Jinan Intermediate People’s Court
that he did not know she intended to take
the money. He admitted that the sum eventually
showed up in his wife’s account, and that he
had not acted soon enough to get the
money back. “I am ashamed of it. I was too careless,
because this is public money,” Bo told the
court. “I failed to retrieve the money later,
and that’s a factual statement, but can you
say I had the intention to embezzle the
money? No.” The Communist Party is using the trial
against Bo to cap a political scandal fuelled
by suspicions that his wife killed Heywood. That scandal led to Bo’s removal from
office, cemented by criminal charges of
interfering with a murder investigation and
netting $4.3m through corruption. The court’s release of trial proceedings are
in sharp contrast with the August 2012
conviction of Gu, when she pleaded guilty to
Heywood’s murder in daylong proceedings
and scant details were released. She was convicted of the murder and was
given a suspended death sentence. Prosecutors have also charged that he
accepted bribes from businessmen in the
form of money or gifts to his family –
including a villa in Nice, France, and plane
tickets to three continents – in exchange
for political favours. The charges of bribery and embezzlement
carry penalties of between 10 years and life
imprisonment, or death in severe cases,
while the abuse of power charge could
result in up to seven years in jail. Courts in China are controlled by the
Communist Party and so a conviction is
expected. Bo denies all charges. [AlJazeera]