the case of Chinese ex-police chief
The hearing for Wang Lijun, former police chief of southwestern Chongqing municipality, will come a week after he was tried in Chengdu on multiple charges, chiefly that he sought to cover up the murder of a British businessman by Gu Kailai, the wife of one of China's most senior and ambitious politicians, Bo Xilai.
Official accounts of Wang's trial have said that he admitted defecting to a U.S. consulate and did not contest the other charges.
Wang has been at the heart of a scandal that rocked China, exposing rifts and uncertainty at a time when the Communist Party is preparing for a once-in-a-decade leadership change.
Wang, 52, lifted the lid on the murder of the British businessman Neil Heywood in February when he fled to the consulate for over 24 hours and, according to sources, told envoys there about the murder that would later bring down Bo.
Within two months of Wang's visit to the consulate, Bo was sacked as party boss and from the Politburo and Bo's wife was accused of poisoning the businessman. Gu has since been given a suspended death sentence.
So far, Chinese officials and media have been silent on the fate of Bo. But an official account of Wang's trial for the first time implicated him in a criminal act, indicating that he had "angrily rebuked" Wang for confronting him with the murder allegations against Gu.
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