Bo Xilai ‘tapped Hu Jintao’s phone calls’

Officials said it was discovered that Mr Hu’s conversations with Ma Wen, the
minister of supervision, had been recorded. Mr Ma’s department is
responsible for combating corruption in the party. Mr Bo is said to have
explained the bugging of President Hu by claiming it was due to a technical
fault.

Mr Bo and Mr Wang have a history of using wiretaps. During a crackdown on
organised crime in Chongqing in 2009 and 2010, the phones of both gangsters
and police were monitored, according to one of the policemen involved.

Yet while the bugging of the phones of criminals and dissidents is assumed to
be commonplace, some insiders doubt such surveillance would extend to
China’s president.

“I think it’s extremely unlikely that Bo tapped the phones of top party
people,” one former senior official in Chongqing told the Daily
Telegraph.

“It’s such a risky thing to do and I don’t see how it would help him. The
way the party operates is that if the leadership have decided to abandon
you, then it doesn’t really matter if you know about it in advance. There’s
nothing you can do.”

Undercover teams investigating Mr Bo and his wife are believed to have been
operating in Chongqing since early 2010. It now seems possible that the
decision to purge the highly ambitious Mr Bo was made long ago. One lawyer
with links to Ang Dao, the law firm established by Mr Bo’s wife, said
rumours about her were already circulating last year.

“I and my colleagues knew that Gu was in big trouble several months ago.
We knew she was being investigated and the sources were senior officials in
Beijing,” he said.

The scandal has now engulfed Mr Bo’s older brother, Bo Xiyong, who was forced
to step down from his role as vice-chairman of the Hong Kong-based company
China Everbright International. Investigators from Beijing are reported to
be in Hong Kong to probe the financial activities of two of Mr Bo’s sisters
as well.

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes