Disgraced Chinese leader Bo Xilai's killer wife 'could be freed in nine years'

Beijing, Aug. 21 (ANI): Gu Kailai, wife of deposed Communist Party official Bo Xilai, could be released from prison in nine years on medical parole, legal experts have said, despite being given a suspended death sentence for the murder of a British businessman Neil Heywood.

Legal experts said Kailai could be released in nine years after staying in all the comfort of a prison reserved for high-profile political figures.

Prominent political figures lived in larger cells, some furnished with desks, bathrooms, sit-down toilets and washing machines, and were permitted to watch television for two hours every evening, prominent Chinese newspaper, the Shenzhen Economic Daily, said.

According to the Wall Street Journal, experts cited several previous examples of prominent political figures, who were given suspended death sentences or long prison terms, and then released on medical parole after serving a few years.

Analysts said that China's leadership had hoped that a stiff sentence for Gu would convince people that members of the party elite are not above the law, but observers said that the court's decision to spare Gu the death penalty undermined the credibility of the process, the report said.

According to the report, Yao Bo, a popular newspaper columnist and social commentator, who wrote on Sina Corp.'s Weibo microblogging site, said: "How wonderful life is, how handy the law can be, as long as you have the party to protect you".

The court spared Gu from immediate execution in part because she "suffers from a mental disorder" and "her power of self-control was weakened," the state-run media said.

It also acknowledged that Kailai had provided 'clues regarding other people's violations of the law and discipline and played a positive role in the investigation and handling of relevant cases'.

"Nine years from now, if she can convince the prison that she is suffering from a serious illness, there would be a legal basis to release her," the report quoted Joshua Rosenzweig, an expert on China's criminal-justice system at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, as saying. (ANI)