Disgraced Chinese Communist Party leader Bo Xilai sprang a surprise on the first day of his high-profile trial on Thursday by defiantly going back on his earlier testimony, calling a witness a ‘mad dog’ and describing his wife’s evidence against him as ‘laughable’.
Appearing in public for the first time after he was taken into custody in March last year, Bo, 64, took full advantage of the ‘open trial’ at Jinnan Intermediate Court in eastern China and went back on his earlier testimonies, catching the prosecutors unawares. Over 100 people were permitted to attended the trial in which five of his relatives 19 journalists were present while the updates on the trial were posted on the court’s Twitter- like Chinese microblog Weibo account.
Regarded as the most charismatic of contemporary Chinese leaders, Bo kept his rebel image by denying accepting 1.1 million yuan (USD 1,80,000) from Tang Xiaolin, General Manager of Dalian International Development Co ltd, when he was Chief of Dalian city. “I had gone against my heart and admitted (accepting bribes from Tang on three occasions) while the Central Disciplinary Commission investigated me,” Bo was quoted as saying by the Hong Kong based South China Morning Post.
looking sullen and rundown, Bo who came to the court wearing an open necked white shirt and tucked between two policemen. PTI