CHENGDU — The sentencing of a former police chief who exposed a murder by a Chinese politician's wife is the latest sign that after months of divisive infighting, China's leadership is tying off a seamy political scandal to move ahead with a generational handover of power. Wang Lijun is expected to be given a lenient sentence by the Intermediate People's Court in the central city of Chengdu Monday. At his trial last week, Wang confessed to defecting, abusing his power and the other charges against him. The crimes are generally punishable by up to 10 years in prison with a 20-year maximum, though harsher sentences are possible. Three times during his trial prosecutors said Wang deserved leniency for cooperating in uncovering the central element in the scandal — the murder of a British businessman by the wife of Wang's former boss, once political high-flier Bo Xilai. The scandal has been the messiest, most public one Communist Party leaders have had to confront in decades, triggering bruising internal jostling as the leadership prepares to transfer power to a younger generation. In the scandal's wake, Bo was removed from the leadership, his wife confessed to the murder, and relations among the leaders were strained. As a result, arrangements for a party congress to install the new leadership this fall were complicated. After Wang's sentencing, the leadership is expected to announce long overdue dates for the congress and dispose of the scandal's stickiest issue — whether merely to expel Bo from the party or hand him over for criminal prosecution. Pronouncing judgment on Bo will allow the new leaders to take charge without the scandal's overhang. Wang's trial and conviction mark the spectacular downfall of a publicity-grabbing police official who rose to nationwide fame by leading a high-profile but law-bending crusade against organized crime in the inland city of Chongqing until he was cast out by Bo, the city's party chief. According to an official account of his trial, Wang had grown close to Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, and after she confessed to murdering Briton Neil Heywood, Wang covered it up until his estrangement from her, and later Bo, drove him to flee to the US Consulate in Chengdu, fearing for his life. “When mafia members break up with their bosses, they can attempt to seek police protection. But in Chongqing and for the former police boss, there was nowhere to turn,” prominent editor Hu Shuli wrote in a commentary posted on the website of her magazine, Caixin. “And this perhaps encapsulates one of the greatest embarrassments of the country's current legal system.” The official account of Wang's trial, carried by Xinhua, portrays Wang as unbound by the law. It says that he took bribes from businessmen connected to Bo in exchange for releasing suspects from police detention. — AP
