In Detailed Account, Blackmail Emerges as
Motive for Killing in China
By EDWARD WONG and ANDREW JACOBS
Published: August 10,
2012
BEIJING — Now that the
murder trial of Gu Kailai has ended, far more detailed accounts have emerged
from inside the courtroom of the case that prosecutors built against Ms. Gu,
the wife of one of China’s
most ambitious leaders. The accounts show her plotting with allies, including
the local police chief, to protect her son from what she saw as the blackmail
demands of the British business associate she is believed to have killed.
Prosecutors
presented evidence that the Briton, Neil Heywood, had demanded tens of millions
of dollars from Ms. Gu’s son, locked him up in a residence in England and sent
an e-mail threatening to “destroy” him. In response, Ms. Gu sought help from
the local police chief, who refused to go along with her plan to get rid of Mr.
Heywood and later secretly recorded her confession after she poisoned Mr. Heywood.
The tale
gave a rare glimpse into the darkest corners of a Chinese ruling family. It
told of a dramatic struggle between Ms. Gu; her Oxford- and Harvard-educated
son, Bo Guagua, 24; and Mr. Heywood, 41, a longtime friend and business
associate whose body was found in November in a hotel in Chongqing, the
fog-wreathed western metropolis governed for more than four years by Ms. Gu’s
husband, Bo Xilai, a
Politburo member.
Ms. Gu
and a family aide, Zhang Xiaojun, stood trial on Thursday in
Hefei, Anhui Province. No verdict was delivered, but a court
official said the defendants did not object to the charges. The details of the
court arguments that emerged Friday were not included in a terse statement
issued the previous day by officials.
A detailed
account of the trial was posted on Friday morning on renren.com,
a social networking Web site, by Zhao Xiangcha, a university student in Anhui
who said he had been inside the courtroom. He said he had written it from
memory after the seven-hour trial had adjourned. Most of the account, which was
deleted from his renren.com page around noon, was confirmed in telephone
interviews with Li Xiaolin, a lawyer for Mr. Zhang, and another lawyer inside
the courtroom.
Mr. Zhao
wrote in his post that Ms. Gu, whose hands shook during the trial, confessed to
murdering Mr. Heywood.
Many
legal experts say the trial was political theater. Bo Guagua declined to
comment for this article. Mr. Heywood’s mother said before the trial that the
case was rooted in palace intrigue.
Mr. Heywood’s wife, who is Chinese, could not be reached for comment. People at
the trial said the defense lawyers argued that the poison might not have been
enough to kill Mr. Heywood, and that he probably died instead from drinking too
much alcohol that night. The lawyers also said that Ms. Gu suffered from manic
depression and mild schizophrenia and was not in full control of her actions.
According
to the courtroom accounts, Mr. Heywood, a longtime resident of China, met Bo
Guagua in England around 2003. The two became close. Mr. Heywood hoped his
relationship with the Bo family would help further his business ambitions in
China.
Mr.
Heywood was introduced to Xu Ming, a young billionaire and friend of the Bo
family in the northeast city of Dalian, where Mr. Bo had been mayor, and to a
“princeling” executive at a state-owned enterprise surnamed Zhang. The
businessmen later entered into real estate ventures that included a property
deal in France and projects in Chongqing, where Mr. Bo became party chief in
late 2007.
Prosecutors
said that when the Chinese ventures failed because of political interference,
Mr. Heywood last year demanded from Bo Guagua 14 million pounds, about $22
million, which was 10 percent of the money Mr. Heywood had expected to earn if
the ventures had succeeded, according to Mr. Li. He added that the prosecutors
said Mr. Heywood sent threatening e-mails to the younger Mr. Bo — in one, Mr.
Heywood wrote in English that he would “destroy” Mr. Bo. The e-mails were projected
on a screen during the trial.
Mr.
Heywood then locked Mr. Bo up in a residence in England, according to Mr.
Zhao’s account of the prosecutors’ case. Mr. Bo called his mother and told her
about the abduction.
Back in
Chongqing, Ms. Gu asked Wang Lijun, the police chief, for help, but Mr. Wang
said he could do nothing. It then occurred to Ms. Gu that she needed to get rid
of Mr. Heywood to protect her son, whom she called “little rabbit” in e-mails,
prosecutors said.
Ms. Gu,
called “big rabbit” by her son, spoke with Mr. Wang about trying to frame Mr.
Heywood as a drug dealer; on a visit to Chongqing, Mr. Heywood would then be
shot dead by Mr. Wang during an attempted arrest. Mr. Wang helped in the
plotting, but then refused to take part. Ms. Gu came up with a new plan and
obtained a poison used for dogs or rats. Seven people who helped her procure it
were arrested after the scandal broke.
On Nov. 10, Zhang Xiaojun,
32, a retired soldier who was once a personal assistant to Ms. Gu’s father, an
army general, flew to Beijing to invite Mr. Heywood to Chongqing. The
prosecutors said Mr. Zhang was unaware of Ms. Gu’s intent to kill Mr. Heywood.
Ms. Gu told Mr. Wang, the
police chief, about her scheme on the afternoon of Nov. 13. Then she had dinner
with Mr. Heywood. After dinner, Ms. Gu asked a driver to buy a bottle of Royal
Salute whisky. She prepared vials of the poison and handed them to Mr. Zhang.
He now knew about the plan and was initially unwilling to take part but
acquiesced because of his history with the Bo family, prosecutors said.
Around 11
p.m., they drove to the secluded Nanshan Lijing Resort, where Mr. Heywood was
staying in Room 1605 of a villa. Ms. Gu went into the room alone and drank
whisky with Mr. Heywood. He vomited and became woozy. Mr. Zhang came in and
handed Ms. Gu the vials of poison. They put Mr. Heywood in bed. When he asked
for water, Ms. Gu poured the poison into his mouth. She then spread drugs around
the scene, prosecutors said. Ms. Gu and her associates left at 11:28 p.m.
The next
day, Ms. Gu told Mr. Wang about the murder. He secretly recorded the
conversation.
Hotel
workers discovered Mr. Heywood’s body on Nov. 15. The police arrived, and Mr.
Wang directed the investigation. To cover up Ms. Gu’s crime, he and several
officers managed to take away blood samples and other evidence for about a day,
presumably to tamper with it.
In
January, however, Mr. Wang had a falling-out with the elder Mr. Bo, who then
demoted him. Mr. Wang drove to the American Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6 and
told diplomats there about the killing during an overnight stay. He left the
next day, and Chinese security officials escorted him to Beijing. Prosecutors
said he gave his secret recording to the authorities.
Mr. Wang
remains in detention and is expected to go on trial soon. On Friday evening, a
court official in Hefei announced that four senior police officers tried that
day for aiding Ms. Gu — Guo Weiguo, Li Yang, Wang Pengfei and Wang Zhi — had
confessed to helping cover up the murder.
Mr. Bo was dismissed as
Chongqing party chief and suspended from the Politburo after Mr. Wang turned on
him. He is being investigated for “serious disciplinary violations.” His name
was barely mentioned at the trial.
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