Communist Party officials announced late Tuesday night that disgraced politician Bo Xilai had been suspended from all his political duties, and named his wife as a suspect in the murder last year of a Briton living in China.
Mr Bo “is suspected of being involved in serious discipline violations” and will be formally investigated, according to a terse report released around 11pm by multiple state- and party-run media outlets. The Communist Party Central Committee had decided to “suspend” Mr Bo’s membership in that body, and in the more elite Political Bureau. A month ago, Mr Bo was removed from his post as party boss in Chongqing, a megacity and province-level jurisdiction in south-western China.
A separate and more detailed announcement carried at the same time said that Mr Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, together with a household staffer, was “highly suspected... of intentional homicide” in the death in Chongqing of British businessman Neil Heywood.
When Mr Heywood was found dead in a Chongqing hotel last November, authorities initially determined the cause to be an alcohol overdose. But yesterday’s announcement said that after a “reinvestigation” the case has been deemed a homicide.
The report said that both Gu Kailai and the couple’s son were on “good terms” with Mr Heywood, but that conflicts over economic interests had intensified. Ms Gu and the household staffer, named as Zhang Xiaojun, had already been transferred to judicial authorities, the report said.
