The ex-police chief at the centre of a seamy political scandal will be sentenced on Monday as Chinese leaders move to dispatch a messy affair that has upset a tricky transition of power.
The Intermediate People’s Court in Chengdu on Friday announced the verdict date for Wang Lijun, whose two-day trial on charges of defecting, abuse of power and other alleged misdeeds ended on Tuesday.
Once the verdict is pronounced, Chinese leaders are expected to deal with the scandal’s most nettlesome issue: whether to prosecute Wang’s former boss, disgraced leader Bo Xilai, once a rising political star and a rare Chinese politician with national popularity.
Wang, a headline-grabbing, imperious police chief in the inland city of Chongqing, set off the scandal when he sought refuge in a nearby US consulate in February. Inside, he told US diplomats that Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, had murdered a British businessman over a business dispute. Prosecutors said he also applied for asylum, though he later surrendered to Chinese authorities.
The crimes Wang is charged with are generally punishable by up to 10 years in prison, 20 years if the sentences are served consecutively, though life in prison or even death are possible for egregious breaches.
In an official account of his trial, prosecutors argued that Wang was entitled to a more lenient punishment because he later cooperated in exposing Gu’s murder of Briton Neil Heywood. They said his information about others’ crimes “should be considered a major meritorious service”.