Prosecutors demanded “harsh punishment” for fallen Chinese star Bo Xilai as the country’s most dramatic political trial in more than three decades wrapped up yesterday.
Mr Bo, until early last year Communist party secretary of the western Chinese municipality of Chongqing and a member of the politburo, the party’s elite decision-making body, was once seen as a contender for one of the seats in the top leadership. The court said it would issue a verdict at a later date.
He was purged after Wang Lijun, his erstwhile police chief and ally, fled to the US consulate in Chengdu in February 2012 with evidence that Mr Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, had poisoned the couple’s former fixer, British businessman Neil Heywood.