Decision by leaders to ratify expulsion of disgraced former Chongqing party boss paves the way for his criminal prosecution
China‘s leaders have ended a closed-door conclave with a decision to formally expel disgraced politician Bo Xilai from the party, paving the way for his criminal prosecution, state media said on Sunday.
China’s ruling Communist party ratified the expulsion from the party of Bo, the former party boss of Chongqing, and also Liu Zhijun, one-time railway minister, who was sacked last year for “serious disciplinary violations”, state news agency Xinhua said at the end of the secret four-day meeting.
Their expulsions were the latest in a string of punishments doled out by a party keen to show it is clamping down on official corruption just days ahead of a rare party congress expected to usher in a new generation of leaders.
The “seventh plenary session of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Sunday endorsed a decision … to expel Bo Xilai,” Xinhua said in a brief report.
The government accused Bo in September of corruption and of bending the law to hush up his wife’s murder of a British businessman. He has yet to be formally charged.
