Brazen, eccentric cop at heart of China scandal

(Reuters) - The raucous diners in a hilltop restaurant in southwest China ignored a waiter's request to quieten down after a complaint from a petite woman at a nearby table.

The woman made a phone call. Minutes later, a man stormed into the hotel restaurant, brandished his pistol and silenced the table of stunned drinkers who instantly recognized him.

He was Wang Lijun, police chief of Chongqing and an ally of the city's ambitious Communist Party boss, Bo Xilai. The woman was Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, now a suspect in the murder of a British businessman, a crime that has upset China's carefully managed leadership transition.

The incident unfolded in the same hotel in Chongqing where investigators believe the businessman, Neil Heywood, was poisoned in November.

Wang's actions fitted a pattern of wild and flamboyant behavior as recounted by those who know him and whose final, characteristically dramatic act blew the scandal into the open.

On February 6, Wang fled to a U.S. consulate in an apparent asylum attempt after he confronted Bo, sources say, with evidence implicating Gu in the death of Heywood, once a friend of the Bo family. Read More

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