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Briton killed after threat to expose Chinese leader's wife

Added At:  2012-04-16 10:36 PM  

Last Updated At: 2012-04-17 10:36 PM

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REUTERS

CHONGGING: The British businessman whose murder has sparked political upheaval in China was poisoned after he threatened to expose a plan by a Chinese leader's wife to move money abroad, two sources with knowledge of police investigation said.

It was the first time a specific motive has been revealed for Neil Heywood's murder last November, a death which ended Chinese leader Bo Xilai's hopes of emerging as a top central leader and threw off balance the Communist Party’s looming leadership succession. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, asked Heywood late last year to move a large sum of money abroad, and she became outraged when he demanded a larger cut of the money than she had expected the sources said.

She accused him of being greedy and hatched a plan to kill him after he said he could expose her dealings, one of the sources said, summarising the police case. Both sources have spoken to investigators in Chongqing, the southwestern Chinese city where Heywood was killed and where Bo had cast himself as a crime-fighting Communist Party leader.

Gu is in police custody on suspicion of committing or arranging Heywood’s murder, though no details of the motive or the crime itself have been publicly released, other than a general comment from Chinese state media that he was killed after a financial dispute. The sources have close ties to Chinese police and said they were given details of the probe. They said Heywood — formerly a close friend of Gu and who had been helping her with her overseas financial dealings — was killed after he threatened to expose what she was doing.

“Heywood told her that if she thought he was being too greedy, then he didn’t need to become involved and wouldn’t take a penny of the money, but he also said he could also expose it,” the first source said. The sources said police suspect the 41-year-old was poisoned by a drink. They did not know precisely where he died in Chongqing.

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