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Bo Xilai Uncooperative, Could Face Death Sentence
Bo Xilai, then Chinese Communist Party chief of Chongqing, attends the National People’s Congress on March 5, 2012 in Beijing, China. The criminal case against the now disgraced Bo could escalate, with being given the death penalty. (Feng Li/Getty Images)
Bo Xilai, the former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo member and Party chief of Chongqing City, may be subject to life imprisonment or the death sentence after refusing to cooperate with the investigation into his case, according to a Hong Kong media report.
On Tuesday Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao quoted Beijing sources as saying that after Bo Xilai was removed from his Party posts on March 15, he was held at a villa in Huairou District in the suburbs of Beijing and later sent to the high-security Qincheng Prison in the capital.
Bo was subjected to harsh interrogation, yet was uncooperative and often shouted at the investigators. After he was dismissed from the National People’s Congress in late October and then was formally arrested, he even went on a hunger strike in prison, the paper said.
Angered by Bo’s refusal to cooperate, the Chinese regime has extended the investigation to Bo’s older brother Bo Xiyong and two younger brothers, Bo Xicheng and Bo Xining. Insiders close to Bo Xicheng said they lost connection with him in October.
Due to the slow-paced investigation, the sources said, Bo’s trial is unlikely to start immediately after the 18th Party Congress.
The paper quoted Beijing insiders as saying that Bo’s punishment is likely to be intensified. The option of a death sentence will not be left out, as indicated by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s choice to “draw inferences” from the Cheng Kejie case in 2000.
Cheng Kejie, the former vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, was the highest ranking Party leader to be executed for an economic crime, allegedly for sharing bribes of 41 million yuan (US$5.9 million) with his mistress.
However, The Epoch Times revealed that the real reason for Cheng’s execution was because Cheng had offended former Party head Jiang Zemin by showing excessive attention towards famous singer Song Zuying, Jiang’s concubine.
Another example that may be instructive is the sentence given Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai. Gu was on Aug. 20 given a suspended death sentence for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood. After two years that sentence can be commuted to life in prison. At that point, the court has unlimited discretion to reduce her prison term for good behavior.
On September 28, Bo Xilai was expelled from the Party and passed on to the judiciary system. Bo was found guilty of “severe disciplinary violations,” particularly covering up his wife’s murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, and his involvement with corruption, bribery, and transferring assets overseas, according to state-run media.
An earlier report by The Epoch Times revealed Bo’s additional crimes, which the Chinese regime has been covering up. Bo was directly involved in implementing the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice while head of Dalian City and Liaoning Province and earned a reputation for enthusiastically enforcing the persecution. Under Bo’s leadership, Liaoning Province had the the fourth-highest death toll for practitioners among the 30 provinces and province-level cities, according to the Falun Gong website Minghui.
Bo was also involved with the harvesting of organs from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience and selling the dead bodies of Falun Gong practitioners to corpse processing plants to be made into human specimens and body exhibitions for profit, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Political and economic commentator Caoan Jushi believes that Bo Xilai’s punishment is the outcome of the infighting within the Chinese regime. He told NTD Television, “The Chinese regime is actually trying to avoid sensitive issues such as live organ harvesting [of Falun Gong practitioners]. They cannot touch upon all of the problems at once, since they are too concerned about their survival. So Bo’s case is just a matter of their internal fighting.”
Editor’s Note: When Chongqing’s former top cop, Wang Lijun, fled for his life to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, he set in motion a political storm that has not subsided. The battle behind the scenes turns on what stance officials take toward the persecution of Falun Gong. The faction with bloody hands—the officials former CCP head Jiang Zemin promoted in order to carry out the persecution—is seeking to avoid accountability for their crimes and to continue the campaign. Other officials are refusing to participate in the persecution any longer. Events present a clear choice to the officials and citizens of China, as well as people around the world: either support or oppose the persecution of Falun Gong. History will record the choice each person makes.
Read the original Chinese article.
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*Republished with permission from The Epoch Times
