Chinese Police Officials Linked to Target in Chongqing Scandal Are Detained

[Ray]

Chinese Police Officials Linked to Target in Chongqing Scandal Are Detained

BEIJING — Central investigators have detained at least two senior police officials with close ties to Wang Lijun, the former police chief of Chongqing who set off a national political scandal by confiding suspicions of a murder plot to American officials, according to people with police contacts there. A third police official also close to Mr. Wang has been dismissed. The moves are a sign that the inquiry into Mr. Wang could be reaching a critical phase.

The two detained police officials are Tang Jianhua, a deputy police chief in Chongqing, and Wang Pengfei, former department head of Yubei district. Both were escorted out of Chongqing in June by security officers on the orders of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission, the Communist Party's anticorruption body and one of the lead agencies in the far-reaching inquiries into Wang Lijun and Bo Xilai, the former party chief of Chongqing and a deposed Politburo member.

Wang Pengfei, who appears to have no family ties to Wang Lijun, was removed from his post on June 25 as head of the Yubei district Police Department, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. The same day, another police official, Li Yang, head of the criminal investigations division, was also dismissed.

Wang Pengfei and Mr. Li both followed Wang Lijun from the northeast province of Liaoning to take posts in Chongqing after Mr. Wang was appointed police chief of Chongqing by Mr. Bo. Together, the men carried out a campaign against what they called at the time organized-crime gangs; the campaign also involved persecutions of private businesspeople and enemies of Mr. Bo and his allies, and it is now being widely criticized.

Wang Pengfei is also a wiretapping expert who is believed to be involved in a wide-ranging wiretapping campaign run by the police chief and Mr. Bo. And he arranged a car in February for the police chief to use in a secret trip to a nearby American Consulate, a visit that catalyzed the entire scandal, say two people with police contacts in Chongqing.

Mr. Li was in charge of the investigation into Neil Heywood, a British businessman who was found dead in November in a hotel on the outskirts of Chongqing. In February, Wang Lijun drove to the American Consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu and told American officials there that he believed that Mr. Bo's wife had been involved in the death of Mr. Heywood. Mr. Wang spent a night in the consulate, then was escorted to Beijing by officials from the Ministry of State Security and has not been seen in public since.

Some analysts say the political scandal set in motion by Mr. Wang's consulate visit is the biggest in China in decades. Mr. Bo, who comes from Communist aristocracy and has powerful allies and enemies, was dismissed from his Chongqing post in March and suspended from the Politburo in April. The party also announced that it was investigating his wife, Gu Kailai, and a family aide, Zhang Xiaojun, in connection with Mr. Heywood's death. People in Chongqing with police contacts have said police officials believe that Mr. Heywood was poisoned.

Political observers in Chongqing and Beijing say that Mr. Wang's trial could start as early as this month. One person said he had heard that the trial could take place in Anhui Province, in central China, though it was not obvious why that setting was an option.

Mr. Wang could be charged with treason, though some of the observers say party officials may decide to show leniency because he has been helping with the investigations into the Bo family. The recent detentions of police officials close to Mr. Wang could also indicate that Mr. Wang will face charges related to the so-called crime crackdown, the "strike black" campaign, which began in June 2009 and reportedly involved the torture of many people.

State news organizations reported on June 30 that Mr. Wang had resigned from his position as a member of the National People's Congress, which opens the way for his criminal prosecution. Members of the congress are generally immune from prosecution. The reports said Chongqing officials accepted Mr. Wang's resignation on June 26.

Central investigators have assigned many officials to collect evidence of recent torture by police officers in Chongqing, said one of the people with police contacts. "The case against Wang Lijun could turn out to be more severe than what most ordinary people think," he said.

In April, the party official then in charge of the powerful politics and law committee, Liu Guanglei, told police officials at a meeting that they should admit to any instances in which they had used torture. The meeting signaled the start of a wider inquiry into the "strike black" campaign.

Mr. Tang, the deputy police chief who has been detained by central investigators, received an award on Feb. 28, 2010, for his role in the campaign. The next day, he was promoted to the deputy chief position. Unlike some of Mr. Wang's other allies, he is a native of Chongqing and was not brought over from Liaoning Province.

There have been other recent important moves related to politics in Chongqing, following the end in late June of the Chongqing party congress, one of the many municipal and provincial party meetings that precede the Chinese Communist Party's 18th Congress and leadership transition this fall. Mr. Liu, 57, was moved to the head of the rural affairs committee, according to a report on Friday by Xinhua. The reason behind the move, which appeared to some to be a demotion, was unclear. The new head of the politics and law committee is Liu Xuepu, who made it onto the Chongqing party branch's elite 13-member standing committee last month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/w...ies-to-wang-lijun-are-detained.html?ref=china

I thought Wang tattled on Bo and was the darling of the Chinese leadership.

What went wrong?