Disgraced Chinese leader Bo Xilai has agreed to plead guilty at a trial likely to be held within weeks, three sources said, in an apparent bid to earn a more lenient sentence and allow authorities to close the door on the country’s biggest political scandal in decades.
But it was not clear if he would plead guilty to all or only some of the charges of accepting bribes, corruption and abuse of power.
Bo’s downfall is the country’s most divisive political scandal since the 1976 downfall of the Gang of Four at the end of the Cultural Revolution.
President Xi Jinping is keen for Bo’s trial to go off smoothly as he pushes major economic reforms ahead of a closed-door party plenum in September or October where he will need unstinted support from the party.
Bo, one of the Communist Party’s high-flyers who fell from grace early last year, had refused to cooperate with government investigators, staged a hunger strike twice and refused to shave his beard in protest against what he deemed unfair treatment.
“Bo Xilai had initially refused to admit guilt and insisted on defending himself,” said a source with ties to the leadership and direct knowledge of the matter, requesting anonymity due to the political sensitivity of the case.