The trial of former political heavyweight Bo Xilai
stretched into a third day Saturday, as observers reveled in the
intimate details of the extravagant life of an estranged couple once
called "the Kennedys of China."
The former Communist
Party chief of sprawling metropolis Chongqing kept up his vigorous
defense against embezzlement charges Saturday morning and, as he did
Friday on corruption charges, dismissed video testimony from his jailed
wife as a desperate attempt to reduce her own sentencing.
Gu Kailai is currently
serving a suspended death sentence for murdering British businessman
Neil Heywood in a hotel room in November 2011. She gave her testimony to
the court via video and has said that Bo was well aware of
multi-million dollar dealings to fund their -- and their son's --
jet-setting lifestyle.
"I have feelings for Gu
Kailai," Bo was quoted as saying in a court-released transcript, after
admitting to an extramarital affair. "She is a vulnerable woman... and
who else could she turn in? That's why all accusations against me
originated from her."
Prosecutors allege Bo
received five million renminbi ($820,000) of public funds from a local
urban planning official in Dalian, Liaoning province in the early 2000s
when he was mayor and later the provincial governor.
Bo slammed the
allegations as "contradictory" and denied that he needed to take the
money as his wife made an adequate income from her five law firms.
Details of the final charge -- abuse of power -- started being heard late Saturday.
Bo's fall from grace
Bo's glittering career,
in which he drew admirers and detractors for his populist policies, fell
apart last year amid a scandal involving murder, betrayal and financial
skullduggery.
His high profile and
connections among the nation's ruling elite have made his case -- with
its tales of greed and wrongdoing by a top official and his family -- an
extremely delicate matter for Chinese authorities. It's taken more than
a year, during which time the Communist Party underwent a major
leadership change, to bring him to trial.
Many observers had
expected proceedings to stick closely to a preplanned script, seeing the
trial's outcome as the result of a political deal struck between Bo and
China's top leaders.
But as he often did in
his political career, Bo has so far stolen the show, mounting a robust
attack on the prosecution's case and ridiculing witnesses' testimony.
That has left China watchers trying to figure out how far he's veered
off script.
Bo calls wife 'insane'
He began his
counterattack after the trial opened Thursday amid tight security in the
eastern city of Jinan. He said he had made an earlier confession to
party investigators "unwillingly" and described testimony by a former
associate as "an ugly performance by a person who sold his soul."
He continued his
offensive Friday, calling his imprisoned wife "insane" after the court
was shown video testimony in which she implicated him in a murky
property deal in the South of France.
Bo, 64, is on trial on charges of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power.
Journalists from the
international news media haven't been allowed inside the courtroom. But
the court's official microblog account has delivered updates on
developments inside, attracting more than 350,000 followers on Weibo,
China's Twitter-like service.
CNN hasn't been able to
verify precisely how accurate and comprehensive the court's version of
proceedings has been. But many observers have interpreted it as a
reasonably close, albeit filtered, account.
An 'eloquent' defense
"In my view, Bo Xilai
has decided not to cooperate, but not completely. Because he did not go
too far to condemn other leaders or reveal some other problems," said Cheng Li, a China expert at the Brookings Institution.
The prosecutors were "terrible," Li said, while Bo was "clear, focused, articulate and eloquent."
His courtroom display
appears to have been striking enough to prompt a personal attack against
him on the website of the People's Daily, the official Communist Party
newspaper.
"Bo Xilai's righteous
and forceful performance in court makes one marvel at his superb acting
and lying skills," the op-ed article said, citing an unidentified "media
personality who attended the trial."
His cunning arguments
are only going to prove his extremely poor character and not going to
help him evade punishment under law," the article quoted the person as
saying.
Conviction still seen as likely
Although the
effectiveness of Bo's performance so far doesn't mean the court will
acquit him, it may make it tougher for it to mete out a heavy sentence.
The conviction rate for
criminal trials and their appeals in China -- where the party controls
police, prosecution and courts -- stood at 99.9% in 2010, a U.S. State
Department report cited the Supreme People's Court as saying.
"Of course he will be
convicted, otherwise it would be disastrous," Li said. "But the
sentencing now can't be very severe because of the nature of the charge
and how poorly they've conducted this trial."
It remains to be seen if the prosecutors' performance improves as the case continues.
Flaws revealed
Much of the fallout from the Bo scandal came before the trial opened.
"The Bo case has
revealed the fundamental flaws of the political system and the
widespread phenomenon of corruption and power abuse," Li said.
Members of the Chinese
leadership, including President Xi Jinping, have described corruption as
an existential threat to the Communist Party. But they have so far been
reluctant to pursue it too aggressively.
Analysts say that is largely because it is so rampant.
Bo's case might have
been a chance to make an example of a senior official. But his trial so
far suggests that top leaders are unwilling to delve too deeply or
punish him too severely.
"The leadership wants to
move forward. They want to put it behind them and move onto other
issues," Li said. "That strategy, although it's rational, will probably
not resonate very well -- you leave some potential problems for the
future as they fail to use the case to consolidate and uplift public
confidence in the legal system."
A dramatic downfall
Bo is a princeling, a
term that refers to the children of revolutionary veterans who boast of
political connections and influence. His late father, Bo Yibo, was a
revolutionary contemporary of Mao Zedong and former leader Deng
Xiaoping.
Over the past three
decades, Bo rose to power as a city mayor, provincial governor, minister
of commerce and member of the Politburo, the powerful policymaking body
of the Communist Party.
A charismatic and urbane
politician, Bo was credited with a spectacular, albeit brutal,
crackdown on organized crime during his time as the top party official
of Chongqing, a metropolis in southwestern China.
But when his deputy,
Wang Lijun, walked into the U.S. Consulate in the city of Chengdu in
February of last year and told American diplomats that Bo's wife, Gu
Kailai, was an accomplice in a murder case, a glittering political
career began to unravel.
Wang's move precipitated
Bo's political demise. Soon after news of the events began to emerge,
Bo was removed from his party posts.
A court found Gu guilty
last year of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood in a Chongqing
hotel room in 2011. A family employee, Zhang Xiaojun, was also convicted
in the killing and sentenced to nine years in prison.
The following month,
Wang was convicted of bending the law for selfish ends, defection, abuse
of power and bribe-taking. He received a 15-year prison sentence.
Dispute over a villa
Bo's trial is seen as a potentially concluding chapter in the scandal.
Authorities haven't said
how long it will last. But with only part of the charges addressed so
far, it appears it could go on for longer than the two days some
observers had predicted.
Some of the testimony
Friday concerned accusations that Bo was complicit in a complex deal Gu
carried out to buy a villa in Cannes, France.
A dispute over ownership of the villa resulted in a falling out with Heywood, Gu said.
In her video testimony,
Gu said that Bo was aware that the purchase of the villa had been funded
by Xu Ming, a businessman in the northeastern port city of Dalian,
where Bo was once mayor.
But Bo contested her accusation that he knew how the villa was paid for and poured scorn on her reliability as a witness.
"What's the credibility
of Gu Kailai's testimony? She has changed, she is insane, and she often
tells lies," he said. "She has been under severe pressure from the
investigators to turn me in."
Three indictments
Under the bribery
indictment, prosecutors accuse Bo of using his political posts to secure
influence for others. They say that between 2000 and 2012, Bo, Gu and
their son, Bo Guagua, received about 22 million renminbi ($3.6 million)
in bribes from Xu and another Dalian businessman, Tang Xiaolin.
The embezzlement charge
alleges that Bo and Gu transferred 5 million renminbi of public money
from a construction project in Dalian to a private account through a law
firm in Beijing.
And the abuse of power
indictment relates to Bo's actions after he was informed about his
wife's involvement in the killing of Heywood and Wang's attempted
defection to the United States.
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