MCLC: Bo trial date set

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Bo trial date set
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (8/18/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/world/asia/chinese-politician-to-stand-tr
ial-for-corruption.html

China Answers One Question About Trial: A DateBy CHRIS BUCKLEYPublished:
August 18, 2013

HONG KONG — Bo Xilai, an ambitious and divisive Chinese politician whose
downfall shook the Communist Party elite, will stand trial on Thursday on
charges of corruption, taking bribes and abusing power, state-run news
media announced Sunday.

The brief report from the Xinhua news agency said Mr. Bo would be tried in
Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province in eastern China. But the report
gave no other details about the lurid allegations of corruption and a
murder that toppled him and exposed bitter contention in the usually
secretive Communist Party leadership.

The announcement said the trial would start Thursday morning, but did not
say how long it would last.

Mr. Bo, 64, fell from power last year, upsetting preparations for a
leadership transition and setting off reverberations that are still felt
in Chinese politics. Accusations of skulduggery and graft around him and
his family have drawn intense attention in China, and his trial is
considered a test of how harshly and candidly the Communist Party elite
deals with one of its own.

“Politics will determine how Bo Xilai is tried,” said Chen Ziming, a
commentator in Beijing who closely follows Communist Party affairs. “How
much evidence they present will depend on how severely they want to punish
him, not vice versa.”

China’s courts are controlled by the Communist Party, and there is little
doubt that Mr. Bo will be found guilty after a carefully choreographed
trial. His defense lawyer was appointed by the court. But experts have
offered opposing views about the probable punishment. A death penalty
appears very unlikely, but a prison sentence of 15 years or longer is
almost certain, Mr. Chen said.

“The central leadership will have weighed up the various pressures — for
Bo, against Bo — and come to a decision,” he said. “It’s not a decision
for the court.”

The political passions evoked by Mr. Bo have made his case a difficult one
for the party leadership. If the evidence offered is flimsy or relatively
slight, his supporters may accuse leaders of pursuing a political
vendetta. But if the evidence is extensive and severe, others will ask why
Mr. Bo was allowed to stay in power for so long, and even position himself
for possible promotion into the central leadership.

An urbane former minister of commerce with a liking for sleek suits and
media attention, Mr. Bo was appointed the Communist Party secretary of
Chongqing, a relatively poor municipality in southwest China, in 2007. He
turned Chongqing into a showcase for a blend of welfare programs, reverent
propaganda for the revolutionary past and harsh measures against those
suspected of being members of organized crime cartels. Mr. Bo was a member
of the Politburo, an elite council with 25 members, and his supporters
hoped that he would win a place in the Politburo Standing Committee, the
innermost circle of party power.

But his critics claim that Mr. Bo’s populist facade hid abuses of power
and corrupt self-enrichment by him and his family. Mr. Bo fell abruptly
from power in March last year, more than a month after the former police
chief of Chongqing, Wang Lijun, fled to a United States Consulate. Mr.
Wang disclosed accusations that Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, was involved in
the murder of a British businessman, Neil Heywood, who knew the Bo family.
And he accused Mr. Bo of trying to silence concerns about the case.

Ms. Gu was tried last August and found guilty of fatally poisoning Mr.
Heywood in a hotel villa in Chongqing in November 2011. She received a
death sentence with a reprieve, meaning the sentence is likely to be
reduced to a long prison term. Mr. Bo was expelled from the Communist
Party in September, when the authorities began a formal criminal
investigation.

“We still don’t know what specific allegations lie behind the three
charges against Bo Xilai,” said Li Zhuang, a lawyer in Beijing who became
one of Mr. Bo’s fiercest critics after Mr. Li was jailed in Chongqing. Mr.
Li had worked as a lawyer for a Chongqing businessman accused of running a
criminal network.

“He could be accused of abusing power by trying to conceal or failing to
report the Heywood murder,” Mr. Li said in a telephone interview. “From
what I’ve heard, the sums involved in the corruption case are not as much
as in some other corruption cases, but I think Bo Xilai’s damage to rule
of law, private enterprise and justice was much worse than those other
cases.”

An associate of Mr. Bo’s family said the prosecution’s case would feature
Ms. Gu’s testimony, although it was unclear whether she would appear at
the trial or, as is often done in China, give written testimony. The
associate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect himself from
official recrimination, said Ms. Gu might testify about, among other
things, a villa in France that could form part of the corruption
accusations. Phone calls to Mr. Bo’s court-appointed lawyer, Li Guifang,
were not immediately answered Sunday night.

Mr. Bo has not been seen or heard in public since March last year, and it
remains unclear whether he will contest the charges. But the government is
taking no chances by holding the trial in Jinan, a city far from
Chongqing. Many residents of Chongqing still think fondly of Mr. Bo.

Another complication is that Mr. Bo is a “princeling” — the son of a
revered revolutionary who served alongside Mao Zedong — and had personal
ties with many other princelings, including Xi Jinping, who was appointed
Communist Party chief in November. Since coming to office, Mr. Xi has
promised to clean out corruption and waste in the party, and to remove
crooked officials.

A Chinese businessman who is friends with other princelings said some of
them had continued to express misgivings that Mr. Bo was being treated too
harshly, even if he deserved censure for his mistakes. He spoke on the
condition of anonymity to preserve his friendships with party insiders.