BEIJING, (Reuters) – China’s Communist Party suspended former high-flying politician Bo Xilai from its top ranks and named his wife, Gu Kailai, a suspect in the murder of a British businessman, in revelations yesterday likely to shake leadership succession plans.
The decision to banish Bo from the Central Committee and its Politburo effectively ends the career of China’s brashest and most controversial politician, who was widely seen as pressing for a top post in China’s next leadership, to be settled later this year.
The official Xinhua news agency confirmed a Reuters report several hours earlier that Bo had been suspended from his party posts, and separately reported that his wife is suspected in the murder of Briton Neil Heywood. “Comrade Bo Xilai is suspected of being involved in serious disciplinary violations,” said the news agency said, citing a decision by the central party leadership to suspend Bo from its top ranks.
“Police set up a team to reinvestigate the case of the British national Neil Heywood who was found dead in Chongqing,” Xinhua said, referring to the sprawling southwestern municipality where Bo was party chief until he was dismissed in March as a scandal surrounding him unfolded.
“According to the reinvestigation results, the existing evidence indicates Heywood died of homicide, of which Gu Kailai and Zhang Xiaojun, an assistant in Bo’s household, are highly suspected,” said the news agency, citing a dispute over unspecified “economic interests” between Gu and Heywood.
