Murder charge for politician's wife
01:27 - Source: CNN

Story highlights

The trial of Gu Kailai is expected to begin Thursday

Gu and a family aide are accused in the murder of a British businessman

She is the wife of disgraced Communist Party figure Bo Xilai

Beijing CNN  — 

The wife of a former Communist Party leader will go on trial next week in the alleged killing of a British businessman, a friend of the suspect’s family said Friday.

The trial of Gu Kailai, the wife of disgraced former Politburo member Bo Xilai, is expected to start Thursday in the eastern city of Hefei, according to the friend, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Gu and a family aide were charged in the November death of British businessman Neil Heywood. If convicted, Gu could face the death penalty, but the friend said her life is expected to be spared.

Read more: Bo scandal ‘good’ for China, expert says

Each of the defendants will be allowed to have two relatives at the trial, which is expected to be speedy, according to the friend.

Heywood died in the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, where Bo was the Communist Party chief and a rising star in the party – the son of one of the “eight immortals” of the revolution that created modern China.

Heywood, 41, was found dead in his hotel room in Chongqing, a city of more than 30 million. Officials quickly blamed his death on “excessive consumption of alcohol,” according to media reports, and his body was cremated without an autopsy.

But the matter blew open in February, when Bo’s longtime lieutenant, Wang Lijun, sought refuge at the U.S. Consulate in nearby Chengdu.

Wang, the former police chief who managed Bo’s anti-crime push, wanted political asylum, apparently fearing for his life and allegedly holding incriminating information against his boss. Media reports and online posts claimed Wang clashed with Bo after suggesting Heywood had been poisoned amid a business dispute with Bo’s wife – an allegation that appears in the charges announced Thursday.

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Media reports and online posts claimed he clashed with Bo after suggesting that Heywood had been poisoned amid a business dispute with Gu – an allegation that appears in the charges announced.

Gu and family aide Zhang Xiaojun were arrested in early April. The same day, Xinhua announced that Bo had been stripped of his seats on the Communist Party’s Central Committee and Politburo, the nation’s ruling organs, for an unspecified “serious breach of regulations.”

The Xinhua news agency also announced in April that Bo had been stripped of his seats on the Communist Party’s Central Committee for an unspecified “serious breach of regulations.”

Wang was taken into custody once he left the consulate for entering the diplomatic post without authorization. Paal said his gambit forced China to deal with the scandal with an unprecedented level of transparency, prodded along by social media.

Authorities say Gu and her son came into conflict with Heywood over “economic interests,” and she regarded Heywood as a threat to her son’s safety. Fewsmith said that allegation is the “one real surprise” in the charges.

Britain, which had asked China to investigate the matter further after being informed of growing concern about Heywood’s case, said it welcomed the charges.

Read more: Interest in Bo Xilai scandal bigger abroad than in China

“The details of the ongoing investigation are a matter for the Chinese authorities,” a Foreign Office spokesman said in a statement Thursday. “However, we are glad to see that the Chinese authorities are continuing with the investigation into the death of Neil Heywood. We are dedicated to seeking justice for him and his family and we will be following developments closely.”

Speculation has been rife about the nature of Heywood’s work in China and his ties to Bo’s family.

Gu Kailai is suspected of killing British businessman Neil Heywood, pictured here in an undated photo.

Heywood had lived in China for more than a decade and was married to a Chinese woman. Among the companies Heywood advised was Hakluyt and Co., a consulting firm founded by former officers of the British spy agency MI6.

That link fueled rumors that Heywood might have had connections to British intelligence services. But in a rare public statement on such matters in April, British Foreign Secretary William Hague denied that possibility.

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“Mr. Heywood was not an employee of the British government in any capacity,” he said in a letter. He said the British government would usually neither confirm nor deny those accounts, but that he was making an exception “given the intense interest in this case.”

The case has forced the Communist leadership to confront allegations of wrongdoing by a high-ranking member in an unusually public way, according to Douglas Paal, a top China analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

“The disruption of his departure from office and his wife’s crimes have made it difficult to present a facade of unity to their people,” Paal said.

That united front has been key to ruling China for 2,000 years, he said. The current generation of leaders has been particularly sensitive to maintaining it since 1989, when the party hierarchy split over how to deal with the pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

The leadership is trying to resolve the affair before its once-in-a-decade leadership transition at the Communist Party Congress meeting this year, said Joseph Fewsmith, an international relations professor at Boston University and a longtime China watcher.

CNN’s Matt Smith contributed to this report.