Trial against Bo Xilai to start soon in China

China's disgraced Communist Party leader Bo Xilai, who was sacked over allegations of sex, sleaze and corruption, has been handed over to judicial authorities for the trial to commence.

The discipline body of the ruling Communist Party of China, (CPC) told the media here today that Bo, 63 along with former Railways Minister Liu Zhijun, indicted for corruption have been handed over to judicial authorities, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

A total of 4,698 county-level cadres or higher-level cadres were punished by CPC discipline watchdogs in 2012 and 961 cadres at county-level or above have been transferred to judicial organs, the Disciplinary Committee spokesperson Cui Shaopeng said.

Bo's trial was expected to begin soon here. A former commerce minister and a "princeling", Bo, was sacked last year as the Party Chief of Chongqing, a city with 30 million people where he ran an iron fisted administration with campaigns against crime syndicates earning the reputation of highly dictatorial leader.

A pro-Mao ideologue, he was due to contest for the top post of the Party in last November once-in-a-decade leadership change conference where pro-reform leader Xi Jinping was elected as successor to Hu Jintao.

Bo was expected to rally the hardliners and offer a stiff fight in the Party to get elected to the all powerful seven member Standing Committee of the Politburo.

But he fell from the grace after his wife Gu Kailai had got involved in the murder of a British businessman, Neil Heywood.