Wang Lijun was sentenced to 15 years in prison in the first trial

Wang Lijun was sentenced to 15 years in prison in the first trial Beijing Zao official media Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday that a Chinese judge today sentenced Wang Lijun, the former director of the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau, to be guilty of all four charges...

Beijing Zao official media Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday that a Chinese judge pronounced today that Wang Lijun, the former director of the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau, was guilty of all four charges. In February this year, Wang Lijun fled to the U.S. consulate and revealed to U.S. diplomats that the wife of a top Chinese politician had murdered a British businessman.

Wang Lijun, 52, from Inner Mongolia, was found guilty of four crimes: defection, abuse of power, accepting bribes and bending the law for personal gain. The trial took place last week in Chengdu, the capital city of southwestern China, where the Intermediate People's Court sentenced Wang Lijun to 15 years in prison, a relatively lenient sentence. Judgments in Chinese criminal cases are often predetermined, especially those involving politics. [According to China Central Television, the Chengdu Intermediate People's Court sentenced Wang Lijun to seven years in prison for bending the law for personal gain, two years in prison for defection, deprivation of political rights for one year, two years in prison for abuse of power, and nine years in prison for accepting bribes. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and deprived of political rights for one year. Wang Lijun expressed in court that he would not appeal. ]

Wang Lijun's sister Wang Fengying said after learning of the verdict: "I feel very desperate. This is an unacceptable but must-accept reality. This is the way this country is." Wang Fengying was not allowed to enter the court to observe the sentencing. Wang Fengying also said that Wang Lijun's defense lawyer Wang Yuncai believed that the sentence was more serious than she imagined.

Wang Lijun stayed at the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu for nearly 36 hours, triggering China's biggest political scandal in the past decade. He revealed to U.S. diplomats that the wife of Chinese Communist Party leader Bo Xilai poisoned British Neil Heywood in November last year. The next day, Wang Lijun left the consulate under the escort of National Security Bureau officials and presumably reported Heywood's murder to investigators. In March, Bo Xilai was dismissed from his post as party secretary of Chongqing, a major southwestern town where Wang Lijun had served as director of the city's public security bureau. A month later, Bo Xilai was suspended from his position as a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee.

Last month, Gu Kailai was sentenced to death with a two-year suspended sentence for intentional homicide, which means she may be jailed for a long time but will not be executed. After the trial of Wang Lijun's case ended, Bo Xilai became the only protagonist of the scandal who has not yet been tried. The Communist Party plans to hold its 10-year leadership change this fall, and there is a lot of speculation as to whether there will be any public statement or leaks about Bo Xilai's fate before then.

Bo Xilai is under investigation for what state media calls "serious disciplinary violations," and people are also speculating whether he will face criminal charges or intra-party discipline. Last Wednesday, the state-run Xinhua News Agency released the official transcript of Wang Lijun's trial, which included testimony that Bo Xilai slapped Wang Lijun on January 29, a day after Wang Lijun reported to Bo that he suspected Gu Kailai was involved in Heywood's murder. The official public announcement suggests the Communist Party may decide to try Bo Xilai on criminal charges of trying to cover up the murder. (Before Xinhua News Agency released this report, U.S. officials had stated that Wang Lijun had told U.S. diplomats in Chengdu that Bo Xilai had hit him.)

The Xinhua News Agency report did not name the person who slapped Wang Lijun as Bo Xilai, but the description used in the report clearly showed the identity of the person who hit him.

The official trial record also highlighted the content of speeches made by lawyers for both the prosecution and defense, indicating that Wang Lijun may receive leniency. Records say Wang Lijun cooperated with officials in investigating the illegal conduct of others. This obviously refers to the Gu Kailai case, and may also imply that Wang Lijun assisted the official investigation of Bo Xilai.

Court officials also pointed to Wang Lijun's role in Heywood's murder. Prosecutors alleged that after Gu Kailai told Wang Lijun about her murder of Heywood, Wang Lijun protected Gu Kailai and formally accused Wang Lijun of bending the law for personal gain. Court officials also said Wang Lijun and Gu Kailai discussed Heywood the day before the murder and agreed to monitor the Briton.

During Gu Kailai's trial, court officials said Gu Kailai murdered Heywood because she believed Heywood posed a threat to her son Bo Guagua, who graduated from Harvard University with a master's degree this summer.

There is a strange description in Wang Lijun's court trial record, saying that one night Bo Guagua tried to drive to a city outside Chongqing to meet Wang Lijun and almost got into a car accident. The incident was mentioned in the records to show that the conflict between Gu Kailai and Wang Lijun escalated in the weeks after she killed Heywood.

Court records stated that after Bo Xilai slapped Wang Lijun on January 29, Wang Lijun ordered his public security cronies to collect evidence of Gu Kailai's alleged murder. Wang Lijun asked several police officers to keep separate pieces of evidence, including a sample of Heywood's heart blood and a secret recording of Gu Kailai telling Wang Lijun about the murder. After being taken to Beijing by authorities, Wang Lijun asked his police confidant Li Yang to hand over blood samples to investigators, records said.

Wang Lijun’s lawyer Wang Yuncai (no relation to Wang Lijun) said that the trial records published by Xinhua News Agency are basically accurate. But she objected to prosecutors also accusing Wang of accepting bribes from Xu Ming, a businessman with close ties to the Bo family, and Yu Junshi, a former military intelligence officer.

>Edward Wong is a Beijing correspondent for The New York Times. Patrick Zuo contributed research to this article from Beijing.