Briton’s killer may cheat execution

Chinese leaders may spare a politician’s wife the death penalty for killing British businessman Neil Heywood, fearing her execution might incite public sympathy.

The conclusion of Gu Kailai’s trial will be a step towards closing a scandal that has rocked the Chinese leadership as it prepares to hand over power to younger leaders. The court is due to deliver its verdict today.

Questions remain over the fate of her husband, Bo Xilai, a prominent figure who was dismissed in March as party secretary of the major city of Chongqing.

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Analysts say Communist Party bosses might have decided against a death sentence for fear it might stir outrage or make Gu look like a scapegoat for her husband.

Gu is accused of killing Mr Heywood after having a dispute over money and fearing that he had threatened her son’s safety. State news media reports say Gu confessed to the killing. Family aide Zhang Xiaojun has been named as an accessory to Mr Heywood’s murder.

Gu is said to have admitted intentional homicide, for which the penalty ranges from 10 years in prison to death. One option is a suspended death sentence that can be commuted later to a long prison term.

Chinese courts regularly impose death sentences for murder, rape and some non-violent crimes.

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Any ruling will be politically delicate and Chinese leaders might have decided to impose a lengthy prison term instead of death for fear a more severe penalty might stir outrage or give Gu the image of a scapegoat for her husband’s misdeeds, political and legal analysts say. The party says Bo was removed due to unspecified violations.

If Gu becomes the subject of sympathy, the scandal that has embarrassed China’s government will drag on.

Cheng Li, an expert in Chinese elite politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, said: “If you execute her, what about Bo Xilai? You should also execute Bo Xilai, because when the story becomes fully known, it’s highly likely that people will think that she was just a scapegoat for the whole thing.”

He went on: “Then if you want to put Bo Xilai on the death penalty, that’s a really, really dangerous thing.”

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No senior leader has been sentenced to death in recent decades, and having a party-controlled court system impose such a penalty could open the door to its use in future power struggles.

Zhang is expected to receive a lighter penalty.

Francois Godement, a China politics expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said other factors in Gu’s favour are that state media say she confessed and a claim that she acted to defend her son after threats by Mr Heywood, a former associate of the family.

Mr Godement noted that senior leaders and their immediate relatives have been spared the death penalty since the end of the Cultural Revolution, the chaotic 1966-76 period that saw many party elders persecuted by ultra-radical Red Guards.

One example is the 1998 corruption conviction of former Beijing mayor Chen Xitong, who, like Bo, was a member of the party’s ruling Politburo. Chen was sentenced to 16 years in prison, while lower-level figures have been put to death in other corruption cases.

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He Weifang, a legal scholar at Peking University, said he expected Gu’s sentence to be somewhere between 15 years and the death sentence with a reprieve. He cited in part her status as the wife of a senior leader whose fate remains unclear.

“Immediate execution is very unlikely. Not all intentional homicide cases result in death sentences,” he said.

Gu is accused of luring the victim to a hotel, getting him drunk, then pouring cyanide into his mouth.

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