The “Jackie Kennedy of China” has admitted she killed a British businessman to cover up a massive financial scandal implicating her high-flying family.
Gu Kailai, the glamorous, high-powered lawyer-wife of Bo Xilai, the ousted Communist Party boss of Chongqing, told interrogators that she had to murder Neil Heywood to conceal the millions — and perhaps billions — of dollars that she had smuggled out of China, according to Communist Party sources quoted in the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
Heywood, who may have been Gu’s lover more than 20 years ago, died in November in a Chongqing hotel under mysterious circumstances.
Investigators initially said Heywood, 41, died of acute alcohol poisoning, but that claim was disputed by his friends.
Gu, 53, fell under suspicion in February after Bo’s deputy, Wang Lijun, showed up at the US Consultate in Chengdu, and told them that Gu had poisoned Heywood.
Wang had been assigned to investigate the death of Heywood, and allegedly found that the Briton had helped Gu transfer a fortune illegally out of the country.
Wang was arrested by Bo’s security men as soon as he left the consulate, officials said.