Bo trial ends, China prosecutors demand heavy sentence

JINAN, China - Agence France-Presse

This screen grab taken from CCTV footage released on August 26, 2013 shows ousted Chinese political star Bo Xilai delivering (R) reading a final statement as he stands on trial in the Intermediate People's Court in Jinan, east China's Shandong province. AFP Photo

The dramatic trial of fallen Chinese politician Bo Xilai ended Monday with prosecutors pushing for a heavy sentence over a murder and corruption scandal that shook the Communist Party.
 
Bo's crimes of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power were "extremely serious" and there were no mitigating factors, they said.
 
The description is a key factor in Chinese sentencing, where courts must generally find both conditions apply if they are to impose the death penalty.
 
Analysts widely believe that despite the drama of the five-day trial, which saw Bo mount a feisty defence, a guilty verdict is a foregone conclusion and a long prison sentence has already been agreed.
 
Bo, a populist leftist whose Maoist revivalism drew wide attention, was once the Communist chief of the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, one of the 25 highest-ranking members of the ruling party and tipped to ascend even higher.
 
The Intermediate People's Court in Jinan said on its verified account on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, that it would hand down its verdict at a later date.
 
Under Chinese law the death penalty is available for cases of bribery involving more than 100,000 yuan ($16,000) and the prosecution told the court: "The defendant's crimes are extremely serious.
 
"He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and there are no extenuating circumstances suggesting lighter punishment. It must be dealt with severely according to the law." In a final address to the court Bo struck an emotional note. "I'm trapped deep in the disaster of being in prison," he said. "I'm haunted by all sorts of feelings and all I have left is the remaining time of my life." "I failed to keep my family members and subordinates within bounds. I made significant mistakes. I feel guilty towards the party and the public." Throughout the trial -- originally expected to last only two days -- the court posted regular but delayed transcripts of the proceedings on its Weibo account, in a move hailed by state media as unprecedented transparency.
 
But no foreign media were present in the room and no independent verification was possible. The delays in posting the transcripts lengthened as the trial went on, and Monday's posting of the prosecutor's address was taken down within minutes of being published.
 
It was reposted and taken down again, before being re-published once more with one section deleted.
 
In it, Bo had claimed to have been acting on orders from his "superiors" when he obtained a fake medical certificate about Wang Lijun, his police chief and right-hand man in Chongqing, who had fled to a US consulate.
 
Wang's attempt to seek asylum revealed the scandal surrounding the death of British businessman Neil Heywood, for which the politician's wife Gu Kailai was later convicted of murder.
 
During the proceedings Bo admitted mistakes relating to the investigation into Heywood's killing and "some responsibility" for embezzled state funds that were transferred to one of Gu's bank accounts, but denied all the charges against him.
 
He dismissed Gu as "insane", launched a scathing attack on Wang as "full of lies and fraud", and compared another prosecution witness to a "mad dog".
 
On Monday he said he had confessed while under interrogation because he "still had a hope at the time, which was to keep my party membership and to keep my political career alive" "I have been just a working machine for the last 30 years and have not had time to look into minor details" of his family spending, he added.
 
Wang fled to the US consulate because he had been in love with Gu and had been "confused and overwhelmed" by his feelings, he said.
 
Bo's defiance over the course of the hearings astonished a public unfamiliar with the open airing of top-level intrigue and was in stark contrast to previous Chinese political trials, in which most defendants have humbly confessed their crimes in opaque court proceedings.
 
Margaret Lewis, professor at Seton Hall Law School in the US and an expert in Chinese law, pointed out: "In China, like many other countries, most defendants plead guilty, whether or not it is a case with political implications. "In part this is because of a general policy in China of 'leniency for those who confess, severity for those who resist'." The scandal that brought Bo down erupted in advance of a generational shift of power atop China's factionalised Communist Party.
 
Revelations of private jet flights, luxury villas and gifts of rare animal meats have held Chinese Internet users spellbound, with the court's weibo account gaining more than half a million followers over the course of the trial.
 
But virtually nothing was said publicly of Bo's links with other top communist leaders. Bo's populism won supporters across China but alienated some top leaders of the ruling party, who saw his brash approach as a return to a bygone era of strongman rule.