Top party boss in China suspended from key posts

BEIJING -- Ousted Communist Party provincial chieftain Bo Xilai has been suspended from his posts in the party's Central Committee and the powerful Politburo and will be formally investigated, the state-run news agency Xinhua announced late Tuesday.

Xinhua, in a brief dispatch, said Bo, scion of a Mao-era revolutionary hero and once seen as a rising star in the party, "is suspected of being involved in serious discipline violations."

There were no specifics of what Bo is alleged to have done, but a separate report on Xinhua linked Bo's wife and an aide to the death in Chongqing of a British businessman, Neil Heywood.

Heywood was initially said to have died in November of an overdose of drinking in his hotel room. But Xinhua said late Monday that a police team's "reinvestigation" of Heywood's death found that Bo's wife, Bo Gu Kailai, and Zhang Xiaojun, a staff member described as an "orderly" at Bo's home, "are highly suspected."

"According to investigation results, Bo Gu Kailai, wife of Comrade Bo Xilai, and their son were in good terms with Heywood," Xinhua said. "However, they had conflict over economic interests, which had been intensified. Bo Gu Kailai and Zhang Xiaojun have been transferred to judicial authorities on suspected crime of intentional homicide," the Xinhua article said.

A separate Xinhua story reported Bo's removal from his remaining top jobs.

The dispatch said the party's discipline commission, which handles cases involving Party members, operates in secrecy and is outside the normal court system, "will file the case for investigation."

Since Bo was removed as the party chief in the megacity of Chongqing last month, speculation has swirled about his whereabouts -- he is believed being kept under guard in Beijing -- and precisely what led to his downfall. His removal, just months before a key leadership change this fall, has been called China's biggest political upheaval in decades.