JINAN: Fallen Chinese politician Bo Xilai described his wife as “insane” yesterday after his corruption trial heard video testimony from her implicating him in bribery, in a case that is gripping the communist-run country.
Gu Kailai, once a high-flying lawyer but convicted last year of murdering Neil Heywood, the British businessman whose death sparked the corruption scandal that brought Bo down, looked nervous in the pre-recorded video.
She described telling her husband of a series of bribes, but Bo told the court she was mentally unstable and had compared herself to a historical Chinese assassin, telling him she felt “heroic” when killing Heywood.
The scandal erupted in advance of a generational shift of power atop China’s Communist Party, and Bo’s feisty performance over the two days of his trial has astonished a public unfamiliar with the open airing of top-level intrigue.
In her testimony to the court in Jinan, in eastern China, Gu said she feared Heywood would kidnap and kill the couple’s son Bo Guagua in the United States.
She looked thin and pale during the questioning, recorded earlier this month. It was played in court the day after Bo pleaded ignorance to her dealings, and released by the court on Chinese social media, where it had more than one million views in an hour.
Asked if Bo knew about airline tickets and other items provided by business tycoon Xu Ming -- who prosecutors said had bribed him to the tune of 20.7 million yuan ($3.4 million) -- Gu said: “I told him.”
According to transcripts of Friday’s hearing released by the court on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, Bo said: “She is insane now and she often tells lies.
“The investigators placed enormous pressure on her to expose me when she was mentally disordered.”
She had compared herself to Jing Ke, who more than 2,000 years ago tried and failed to kill the man who would become the first emperor of a unified China, he added.
The claim was “sufficient to prove that she was mentally disordered”, Bo said.
He asked for Gu to testify in person, but the chief judge said she had already refused to do so and the court could not compel her.
Bo, once one of China’s highest-flying politicians, denied the second charge he faces, embezzlement of five million yuan of public funds. The third accusation, abuse of power, has yet to be addressed.
The trial was widely expected to last for up to two days, but will continue for a third day Saturday, the court announced as Friday’s hearing ended.
State-run media have proclaimed the proceedings a mark of transparency.
Agencies
