Former Chinese political star Bo Xilai (C) is shown on trial in the Intermediate People’s Court in Jinan, east China’s Shandong province, August 22, 2013/AFP
Gu Kailai, once a high-flying lawyer but convicted last year of murdering Neil Heywood, the British businessman whose death sparked the corruption scandal that brought Bo down, looked nervous in the pre-recorded video.
She described telling her husband of a series of bribes, but Bo told the court she was mentally unstable and had compared herself to a historical Chinese assassin, telling him she felt “heroic” when killing Heywood.
The scandal erupted in advance of a generational shift of power atop China’s Communist Party, and Bo’s feisty performance over the two days of his trial has astonished a public unfamiliar with the open airing of top-level intrigue.
In her testimony, Gu said she feared Heywood would kidnap and kill the couple’s son Bo Guagua in the United States.
She looked thin and pale during the questioning, recorded earlier this month. It was played in court the day after Bo pleaded ignorance to her dealings, and released by the court on Chinese social media, where it had more than one million views in an hour.
Asked if Bo knew about airline tickets and other items provided by business tycoon Xu Ming – who prosecutors said had bribed him to the tune of 20.7 million yuan ($3.4 million) – Gu at first said “he should have been aware”.
Pressed by the questioner, she said: “I told him.”
According to transcripts of Friday’s hearing released by the court in Jinan in eastern China on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, Bo told the court: “She is insane now and she often tells lies.
“The investigators placed enormous pressure on her to expose me when she was mentally disordered.”
She had compared herself to Jing Ke, who more than 2,000 years ago tried and failed to kill the man who would become the first emperor of a unified China, he added.
The claim was “sufficient to prove that she was mentally disordered”, Bo said.
The trial was widely expected to last for up to two days, but will continue for a third day Saturday, the court announced as Friday’s hearing ended.
State-run media have proclaimed the proceedings a mark of transparency.
Bo, once one of China’s highest-flying politicians, faces charges of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power which emerged after the lurid scandal triggered by Heywood’s death.
Bo presented an unexpectedly spirited defence against bribery charges as the trial began on Thursday, comparing one witness, businessman Tang Xiaolin, to a “mad dog” who appeared to have “sold his soul”.
State broadcaster CCTV on Friday released video of one of the trial’s most dramatic moments, when Bo cross-examined Xu Ming, a former prawn seller who built a huge fortune after developing a relationship with Bo’s family.
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