SHARON LAFRANIERE: Death of a Briton in China Scandal

The mysterious death of a 41-year-old British businessman in a Chongqing hotel room late last year was thrust to the center of the biggest political scandal to hit China's Communist Party in a generation on Tuesday, as the authorities declared the death a murder and named the wife of one of China's most powerful men the leading suspect. The death of the businessman, Neil Heywood, initially attributed to alcohol poisoning, is now considered an "intentional homicide," the Xinhua news agency announced. That made the case the most sensational in a series of charges against the family of Bo Xilai, who was until March the Chongqing party chief and seen as one of the handful of rising leaders slated to run China. On Tuesday, Mr. Bo was suspended from his post on the Politburo, the 25-member body that runs China, and from the larger Central Committee, on suspicion of serious disciplinary infractions, the government announced. His wife, Gu Kailai, who is a lawyer, was being investigated in the killing of Mr. Heywood. Not since the purges after the crackdown on democracy protests in 1989 has the Chinese leadership been exposed to so much turmoil. Excruciatingly for top officials, who prize unity and secrecy above all, this one involves foreigners in an embarrassingly intrusive way, both the death of a British citizen and also the attempt by a senior police official to seek American asylum. That official, Wang Lijun, a onetime close aide to Mr. Bo who was himself under investigation for corruption, fled to the consulate of the United States in Chengdu in February and spent more than 30 hours there. He said Mr. Heywood had been poisoned and revealed what he knew about the death, and about jockeying for power inside the country's closed political system, several people briefed on the matter said.