The trial is the latest
phase in the fall from grace of the prominent family of Bo Xilai, Gu's
husband, who until earlier this year had appeared destined to join the
elite committee of leaders at the top of China's ruling party.
The saga has become the
most sensational Chinese political scandal in recent years, creating an
extraordinary set of challenges for the central government as it
prepares for a once-in-a-decade leadership transition later this year.
Gu and a family aide,
Zhang Xiaojun, are accused of poisoning Neil Heywood, the 41-year-old
British citizen who was found dead in November in a hotel in the
southwestern Chinese metropolis of Chongqing, the city where Bo was the
Communist Party chief.
The trial is taking place
in the city of Hefei, in Anhui province, more than 1,200 kilometers
(750 miles) east of Chongqing, where there is lingering support for Bo
and his family.
"This is definitely more
than a criminal trial," said Wenran Jiang, a professor of political
science at the University of Alberta. He added that the process is being
closely watched for signs of what might happen to Bo, who is being
investigated for "serious discipline violations" after being removed
from his Chongqing and party posts.
Gu's family had wanted to
hire two prominent Beijing lawyers to represent her, but Chinese
authorities have chosen two local attorneys to form her defense team, a
family friend told CNN on Wednesday.
The family is sending the
pair into the courtroom as observers, with the approval of the court,
said the friend, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of
the case.
The cards appear to be
stacked against Gu and Zhang, who are at the mercy of a Chinese court
system that has been criticized by human rights advocates as being
little more than a tool of the country's powerful state security
apparatus.
"In this trial, frankly
speaking, nobody believes that it's a totally independent judiciary and
it will be judged just on the merits of the case," Jiang said. "It has
been managed by the most senior level of leadership at every step."
The defendants haven't
seen their relatives since they were arrested in early April, a friend
of Gu's family said last week. Bo has not been seen in public since he
was stripped of his titles.
When the murder charges
were announced last month, Xinhua, the state-run news agency, reported
that "the facts of the two defendants' crime are clear, and the evidence
is irrefutable and substantial." If convicted, the two could face the
death penalty.
The Xinhua report said
that Gu and the couple's son, Bo Guagua, had "conflicts" with Heywood
"over economic interests." It alleged that Gu and Zhang had poisoned the
Briton because Gu was worried that he was "threat to her son's personal
security."
International media
reports have speculated about the nature of Heywood's work in China and
his ties to the Bo family. He had lived in China for more than a decade
and was married to a Chinese woman. Among the companies he advised was a
consulting firm founded by former officers of the British spy agency
MI6.
Bo Guagua, 24, said in an e-mail Tuesday that he had submitted a witness statement to the defense team for his mother.
"I have faith that facts
will speak for themselves," wrote Bo, who graduated from Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government in May. He previously attended Oxford,
graduating in 2010.
His illustrious education is an indication of the influence and ambitions of his family, which is now engulfed by scandal.
As the son of Bo Yibo,
one the "eight immortals" of the revolution that created modern China,
Bo Xilai was considered a strong contender for promotion into the
Standing Committee of the party's Politburo, whose nine members decide
how to run China.
He stood out as one of
China's most dynamic and controversial politicians, notably for his
populist policies in Chongqing that promoted Chinese Communist culture
and aimed to crack down on organized crime.
Gu is also descended from a revolutionary hero: Maj. Gen. Gu Jingsheng, a prominent military figure.
Fluent in English, she
is a lawyer who took a leading role in a legal battle in the United
States involving several Chinese firms. She eventually won the lawsuit
for the Chinese companies and later wrote a book about it.
As well as being involved in her most notable professional triumph, the United States has also played a role in her undoing.
The case she is now
facing may never have come to light had it not been for an extraordinary
series of actions by Wang Lijun, Bo's longtime lieutenant.
Officials had quickly blamed Heywood's death on excessive alcohol consumption, and his body was cremated without an autopsy.
But on February 6, Wang,
the former police chief who had run the anti-crime push in Chongqing
that helped to build Bo's reputation, sought refuge at the U.S.
Consulate in nearby Chengdu.
He wanted political
asylum and apparently feared for his life. Media reports and online
posts have claimed that he had clashed with Bo after suggesting that
Heywood had been poisoned amid a business dispute with Gu.
He gave information
about Heywood's death to U.S. officials before he left the consulate and
was taken into custody by Chinese security forces. The British
government was made aware of Wang's comments and made a formal request
to the Chinese authorities to investigate the case on February 15.
A month later, Xinhua
announced that Bo had been removed as party secretary of Chongqing. And
less than a month after that, Gu and Zhang were arrested.
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.
From Jaime A. FlorCruz and Steven Jiang, CNN
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