Bo’s Wife Given Suspended Death Sentence
WSWS | An intermediate court in the Chinese city of Hefei formally imposed a suspended death sentence on Gu Kailai, the wife of the dismissed Chongquing party secretary Bo Xilai, for the murder of her British business partner, Neil Heywood, last November. Gu had pleaded guilty to the charge.
The judge declared that the death penalty had been suspended as a result of a medical report on Gu’s mental instability. The sentence was undoubtedly a political decision made at the top levels of the Beijing regime, amid sharp factional struggles inside the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) prior to its upcoming 18th congress.
Gu publicly declared that she accepted the sentencing as a “just” decision, clearly hoping that her cooperation would lessen the impact on her family. Her husband Bo has been locked up in an unknown location since March and her son is now in the US.
