Chinese politician Bo's wife charged with murder

By Gillian Wong and Charles Hutzler
Associated Press  • 
Enlarge Image
China Foto Press/AP photo/Kyodo News

The wife of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai and a family aide have been charged with the murder of a British businessman, the government said today, pushing ahead a case at the center of a messy political scandal that exposed divisions in China's leadership.



In a sign that the release of the news was carefully controlled to minimize public discussion, Xinhua's report was not mentioned on state broadcaster China Central Television's nationwide evening news program.

On the Internet, the Xinhua report was carried on official mainstream news sites but any mention of it appeared to have been scrubbed off popular microblogs, where Bo and his wife's names remain banned search terms. Commenting was disabled on most sites that carried the Xinhua report, while other webpages only allowed comments in support of the prosecution.

The scandal exposed the bare-knuckled infighting that China's secretive leadership prefers to hide and affirmed an already skeptical public's dim view about corrupt dealings in the party.






The report referred to Bo's wife as "Bogu Kailai," an unexplained combining of their last names. It did not name their son, but they have only one, Bo Guagua.

The scandal was sparked by Bo's police chief Wang Lijun's shocking visit to a U.S. Consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu in January, where he is thought to have told the Americans about Bo's transgressions and his concerns over Heywood's death.