[h=3]By CARLOS TEJADA[/h]BEIJING—Chinese officials have indicted Gu Kailai, the wife of fallen Chinese politician Bo Xilai, on the charge of intentional homicide, state media reported on Thursday.
The state-run Xinhua news agency said Ms. Gu was prosecuted by officials in China's Anhui province. Xinhua also said a person named Zhang Xiaojun had been charged, without providing further identification.
Associated PressIn this January 2007 file photo, Bo Xilai, right, and wife Gu Kailai attend a funeral for his father in Beijing.
Chinese officials have previously said Ms. Gu and an employee in the Bo household were suspects in the death of British businessman Neil Heywood.
In the Thursday report, Xinhua said an investigation revealed that Ms. Gu and her son had "conflicts of economic interests" with Mr. Heywood. Ms. Gu believed Mr. Heywood had threatened her son's safety, according to the report, and killed Mr. Heywood with poison together with Mr. Zhang.
The report didn't supply the first name of Ms. Gu's son.
[h=3]The Chongqing Drama[/h]See key dates in the mysterious death of Neil Heywood in the Chinese city of Chongqing and the drama surrounding Bo Xilai.
[h=3]Players in China's Leadership Purge[/h]Read more about the players in the case.
Mr. Bo—once a rising star in Chinese politics—was ousted in March as Communist Party chief of the city of Chongqing, and a month later was accused of unspecified violations of party discipline. The unusual moves showed fissures in the usually opaque world of Chinese politics and have roiled the prospects for a smooth once-a-decade leadership transition expected to begin late this year.
Neither Mr. Bo nor Ms. Gu has been reachable to comment since the government announced they were under investigation.
The report comes one week after a French architect who had once been a friend and adviser to Ms. Gu flew to China from Cambodia, in a move that the Cambodian government said he did to cooperate with the investigation. The architect, Patrick Henri Devillers, and Mr. Heywood were part of a small circle of friends and advisers around Ms. Gu in the northeastern city of Dalian in the 1990s, when Mr. Bo was mayor there, according to several people who knew them all.
The scandal broke when Mr. Bo's former police chief in Chongqing, Wang Lijun, sought refuge in a U.S. consulate in China in February. Among the allegations he made against his former boss was that Mr. Heywood, who died in Chongqing last year, was poisoned after he had fallen out with Ms. Gu.
Ms. Gu was once one of China's most prominent lawyers, after the firm she started became among the first to win a civil suit in America. She wrote a popular book about it called "Winning a Lawsuit in the U.S." that was later filmed for television. She also once had business interests spanning China, the U.S. and Britain.
Write to Carlos Tejada at [email protected]
The state-run Xinhua news agency said Ms. Gu was prosecuted by officials in China's Anhui province. Xinhua also said a person named Zhang Xiaojun had been charged, without providing further identification.
Associated PressIn this January 2007 file photo, Bo Xilai, right, and wife Gu Kailai attend a funeral for his father in Beijing.
Chinese officials have previously said Ms. Gu and an employee in the Bo household were suspects in the death of British businessman Neil Heywood.
In the Thursday report, Xinhua said an investigation revealed that Ms. Gu and her son had "conflicts of economic interests" with Mr. Heywood. Ms. Gu believed Mr. Heywood had threatened her son's safety, according to the report, and killed Mr. Heywood with poison together with Mr. Zhang.
The report didn't supply the first name of Ms. Gu's son.
[h=3]The Chongqing Drama[/h]See key dates in the mysterious death of Neil Heywood in the Chinese city of Chongqing and the drama surrounding Bo Xilai.
[h=3]Players in China's Leadership Purge[/h]Read more about the players in the case.
Mr. Bo—once a rising star in Chinese politics—was ousted in March as Communist Party chief of the city of Chongqing, and a month later was accused of unspecified violations of party discipline. The unusual moves showed fissures in the usually opaque world of Chinese politics and have roiled the prospects for a smooth once-a-decade leadership transition expected to begin late this year.
Neither Mr. Bo nor Ms. Gu has been reachable to comment since the government announced they were under investigation.
The report comes one week after a French architect who had once been a friend and adviser to Ms. Gu flew to China from Cambodia, in a move that the Cambodian government said he did to cooperate with the investigation. The architect, Patrick Henri Devillers, and Mr. Heywood were part of a small circle of friends and advisers around Ms. Gu in the northeastern city of Dalian in the 1990s, when Mr. Bo was mayor there, according to several people who knew them all.
The scandal broke when Mr. Bo's former police chief in Chongqing, Wang Lijun, sought refuge in a U.S. consulate in China in February. Among the allegations he made against his former boss was that Mr. Heywood, who died in Chongqing last year, was poisoned after he had fallen out with Ms. Gu.
Ms. Gu was once one of China's most prominent lawyers, after the firm she started became among the first to win a civil suit in America. She wrote a popular book about it called "Winning a Lawsuit in the U.S." that was later filmed for television. She also once had business interests spanning China, the U.S. and Britain.
Write to Carlos Tejada at [email protected]