China indicts ex-politician Bo Xilai for corruption

Calum MacLeod | USA TODAY

BEIJING -- China's ruling Communist Party, which strives to present a unified, tightly scripted and corruption-free leadership to 1.3 billion citizens, moved Thursday to write the final chapter in one of the most damaging political scandals in recent decades.

The maverick, charismatic politician Bo Xilai, whose last post was Party chief of the sprawling metropolis of Chongqing, in the nation's southwest, was charged Thursday with bribery, embezzlement and power abuse, according to prosecutors in the city of Jinan, in east Shandong Province, reported the state-run Xinhua news agency.

The trial is likely to take place soon in Jinan, although this has not been officially confirmed. Bo has not been seen in public for 16 months since his dramatic downfall that involved his police chief Wang Lijun trying to defect to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu, and Bo's wife Gu Kailai being found guilty of murdering a British businessman in Chongqing.

The indictment paper said Bo took advantage of his position as a civil servant to seek profits for others and accepted an "extremely large amount" of money and properties, reported Xinhua. He also embezzled a "huge amount of public money and abused his power, seriously harming the interests of the state and people," said the paper, although the charges did not mention his "improper relations" with several women, behavior that was cited in his dismissal from the Communist Party last Fall.

Many China analysts believe Bo was also targeted for his unusually open ambition to rise to a spot on the ruling Party's Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of power in China. The infighting caused by Bo, who boasts an elite Communist background as son of a Party elder, threatened to upset plans for an outwardly stable power succession last Fall.

In Chongqing, Bo showed highly effective, populist skills by reviving the mass singing of Mao-era songs, cracking down on organized crime and speeding economic growth.