A Chinese court has confirmed handing down a suspended death sentence for Gu Kailai, the wife of fallen politician Bo Xilai, for murdering a British businessman.Zhang Xiaojun, a Bo family aide who admitted to helping Gu with Neil Heywood’s murder last November, received a nine-year jail sentence, according to court sources.A statement to this effect from Tang Yigan, an official with the Hefei Intermediate Court in eastern China, followed earlier comments from witnesses who had attended Monday’s closed-door hearing.Suspended death sentences are normally commuted to sentences of up to 25 years or life in prison, subject to good behaviour in prison for two years. .Tang said at a media briefing that It remains unclear whether Bo himself will be implicated.Four police officers who worked under Bo Xilai in Chongqing and who were tried by the Hefei court earlier this month, were found guilty of covering up the killing, Tang said.He said the four - named as Guo Weiguo, Li Yang, Wang Pengfei and Wang Zhi - were sentenced to between five and 11 years in jail.They had been charged with trying to conceal Gu’s involvement in Heywood’s death by “forging interview scripts and hiding evidence”.“We respect today’s decision,” He Zhengsheng, who represented Heywood’s family, said.Questions unansweredAl Jazeera’s Rob McBride in Hong Kong described the case as one of the “biggest scandals to hit the Communist Party of China in the past two decades”.“Lots of questions are still left unanswered about Bo Xilai’s involvement in all of this,” he said.
