HEFEI, china — The murder trial of Gu Kailai, the wife of deposed political leader Bo Xilai, began Thursday morning and came to an end seven hours later, with officials saying that the defendant and an accomplice had all but confessed to poisoning a British businessman who had threatened the safety of Gu’s son.
In a statement read to foreign journalists, the deputy director of the Hefei Intermediate People’s Court placed most of the blame on Gu, 53, saying she gave the Briton, Neil Heywood, a fatal dose of poison as they sat in a hotel room in Chongqing, the metropolis in southwest China that was run by her husband until his downfall last spring.
“The criminal facts are clear; the evidence is solid,” the court official, Tang Yigan, said.
A verdict will be announced at a later time.
According to the statement, the killing took place on the evening of Nov. 13 after Gu and Heywood spent time drinking together at a rented villa on the outskirts of the city. After consuming tea and alcohol, Heywood began to vomit and asked for a glass of water, at which point Gu “poured poison into his mouth,” the court said.
The statement said the poison was prepared in advance and given to the family employee, Zhang Xiaojun, 33, who had accompanied Heywood to Chongqing from his home in Beijing. The court provided no further detail of Zhang’s role, nor did it specify who prepared the poison.
Tang also said Heywood deserved some responsibility for the murder because he had threatened the safety of Gu’s son, Bo Guagua, a Harvard graduate. He did not elaborate on the nature of the threat.
Analysts think the mitigating circumstances presented by the court — that Gu feared for the safety of her son — lessened the likelihood that Gu would face the death penalty.
The court’s statement raised a host of questions: It did not explain the “economic interests” that had prompted the dispute between Gu and Heywood, 41. It also avoided any mention of her husband, who reportedly knew about his wife’s crime and sought to cover it up.
