Chinese prosecutor in murder trial of wife of disgraced Party official Bo Xilai found hanged
Body of Man Mingan, 60 – prosecutor in scandalous case that saw Gu Kailai convicted and given suspended death sentence – discovered in residential apartment in Anhui on Tuesday morning
The former top prosecutor in the murder trial of Gu Kailai, the wife of disgraced former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai, is believed to have hanged himself on Tuesday, state media reports.
Man Mingan, Hefei’s deputy chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was found dead in a residential apartment in the central Anhui province early on Tuesday morning.
Police had received a report at about 7am that a body had been found in a top-floor apartment. Initial investigations suggest that Man hanged himself, but authorities are still looking into the precise circumstances surrounding his death.
A report in the Shanghai-based online news outlet, The Paper – citing anonymous sources familiar with the case – said that authorities had advised Man’s relatives and friends not to pay their condolences at his home for now, and that the city’s party committee held a meeting to discuss his death on Tuesday afternoon.
Man, 60, was the chief prosecutor and Communist Party boss of Hefei procuratorate for nearly 10 years.
The prosecution of Gu, a former lawyer and wife of Bo, a former member of the Politburo, was the biggest political scandal to hit China in decades.
In 2012, the Hefei procuratorate charged Gu with the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.
Prosecutors said Gu had administered poison to the 41-year-old businessman in a hotel room in Chongqing, where her husband Bo was the party chief, in November 2011.
Gu did not dispute the charges during the trial and after being convicted of murder she was given a suspended death sentence.
The Hefei procuratorate was awarded a top-grade merit by the country’s top procuratorate for its handling of the case.
