China’s Bo Xilai to stand trial

Former Communist Party chief of Chongqing municipality will stand trial on Thursday for charges of bribery and fraud.

Bo Xilai, a former Communist Party chief of Chongqing municipality, will stand trial on Thursday on charges of bribery, fraud and abuse of power, China state media reported.

The disgraced politician was expelled from the Communist Party after the murder of a British businessman, triggering one of China’s biggest political scandals in decades.

The trial date was announced on Sunday amid a government crackdown on corruption within the Communist Party.

Bo was a rising star in Chinese politics and the 62-year-old was being groomed for more senior positions until March, 2012, when he was suspended from his position as head of Chongqing and the Communist Party’s powerful 25-member Politburo the following month.

The open trial will start at 8:30 a.m. on August 22, the court said.

In September 2012, the government accused Bo of corruption and bending the law to hush up the November 2011 murder of Neil Heywood, after his wife Gu Kailal was named a suspect.

Finally, in July 2013, a man once called one of China’s ‘princelings’ was indicted for bribery, corruption and abuse of power.

A media scandal erupted in April 2012, over Bo’s lavish lifestyle and over what type of luxury car his son drove while he was studying at Harvard University.

While Bo’s official salary was less than $20,000 a year, his son “attended the best schools in the world, the family had lavish apartments in London, and there are reports that their total wealth was in the realm of $136 million,” the Business Insider magazine reported.

Bo is the son of powerful Communist general Bo Yibo.

Source: Al Jazeera