Bo Xilai 'may face criminal charges' over Neil Heywood murder

Bo Xilai, the disgraced former top Communist party leader, is likely to face criminal charges over Neil Heywood's murder after state media published the fullest account yet of the days after the killing.

It claims Bo was aware of the murder as early as January last year and that he struck his chief policeman when he was told that his wife, Gu Kailai, was suspected of murdering the 42-year-old British businessman.

The 4,000-word official account was pulled together from evidence presented at the trial of Wang Lijun, the flamboyant 52-year-old police chief who blew the whistle on the crime.

Wang has been charged with corruption, trying to cover up the crime, illegal wiretapping and with trying to defect to the United States.

It was during his 33-hour stay inside the American consulate in the city of Chengdu in February that he tipped off diplomats to Heywood's murder and filled in forms requesting asylum. The US diplomats subsequently passed information about the murder to the Foreign Office.

According to the account, published on Xinhua, the state news agency,  Wang fled to the consulate after telling Bo on January 28 that his wife, Gu Kailai, was a suspect in Heywood's case.

The Xinhua account did not refer to Bo by name, but instead called him "the then leading official of the Communist Party of China Chongqing Committee".

"On the morning of January 29, Wang Lijun was angrily rebuked and slapped in the face by the official," the account said.

Once the dispute between the two men came to a head, it was a matter of days before Wang fled, apparently in fear for his life, to the US consulate.

Bo had not been mentioned in his wife's trial, and this is the first time it has been officially implicated in the crime.

One diplomatic source said that a timetable for action on Bo has been circulating at the top of the Communist party. Bo would first be ejected from the party and then put on trial in court. However, it is thought the action against Bo will come after the 18th Party Congress.

Other key disclosures in the account include a chronology of Gu's actions after the murder. At midnight, after poisoning Heywood at the Nanshan Lijing Holiday resort, she called Wang to tell him what had happened.

The next day at noon, which was November 14, they met at Gu's home. Wang secretly recorded her confessing to the crime, a tape that was played in court. He told her he would take care of it, and that she should "wipe the events from her memory". Wang delegated the case to another policeman, Guo Weiguo, without telling him of Gu's involvement. He told the court he wanted to keep his distance from the potentially explosive situation. Two days later, the police recorded that Heywood had drank himself to death.

On November 17, Wang gave Gu the CCTV footage showing that she was the last person to visit Heywood's room, and on November 18, when Heywood was cremated, he called her to say the evidence had "gone up in smoke". However, the court did not explain what made Wang and Gu, who seemed close accomplices, turn against each other. It noted that Wang and Gu had once had a "close relations".

But there were also arguments between them, including a dispute over a near miss by her son while driving to meet Wang. "On August 12, 2011, Bogu Kailai's son, surnamed Bo, wanted to meet Wang Lijun," the account said. "Bogu Kailai's son almost had a traffic accident on his way to Wanzhou, making Bogu Kailai very angry with Wang."

By mid-December, the relationship was souring, and Wang said he felt the subject of hostility. He decided to safeguard himself by reinvestigating the case and "properly protect key material evidence, including blood extracted from Neil Heywood's heart". He gave this to a trusted aide, Li Yang, and it was this evidence that convicted Gu.