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US President Barack Obama was told of the alleged murder of British businessman Neil Heywood before foreign secretary William Hague. The president was briefed about the 41-year-old's suspected poisoning within hours of Chinese police chief Wang Lijun walking into a US consulate to tell officials he was murdered. The decision to inform the President so soon after the killing of a British citizen overseas so soon after it happened was described as 'almost unprecedented'. John Tkacik, who worked for the US state department in China for 20 years told The Sunday Telegraph: 'This was a very high official with extraordinary...

Bo Xilai Alleged Financier: George Soros BEIJING: Billionaire oil tycoon George Soros, an executive board member of the International Crisis Group, has played a major role in deposed Chinese Communist Chongqing Boss, Bo Xilai’s rise to fame and fortune in Dalian and Chongqing. ... http://www.dallasblog.com/201204241008984/dallas-blog/bo-xilai-alleged-financier-george-soros.html

Fearful Final Hours for Briton in China The day before his death in the fog-shrouded Chinese city of Chongqing, Neil Heywood sensed that something was amiss. The British businessman had been summoned on short notice to a meeting in Chongqing in early November with representatives of the family of Bo Xilai, the local Communist Party chief, according to an account by a friend whom Mr. Heywood contacted at the time. Mr. Heywood told the friend he was "in trouble." After he flew to Chongqing, he tried to telephone his usual contacts but couldn't get through to any of them, according...

Mr Obama was briefed immediately on the suspected poisoning of the 41 year-old, which Chinese officials are linking to Mr Heywood’s powerful political allies, when American diplomats were told of the murder allegation. Gu Kailai, Mr Heywood’s former business partner and the wife of Bo Xilai, a senior politician who had been tipped for the highest political office, is suspected of ordering the Briton’s murder in a case at the centre of a political storm in China. The couple have disappeared from sight as the Communist Party attempts to regain stability....... Mr Obama was informed of suspicions over Mr Heywood’s...

China's Gu Kailai gets suspended death sentence: witnesses By John Ruwitch HEFEI, China | Sun Aug 19, 2012 11:28pm EDT (Reuters) - A Chinese court sentenced the wife of ousted Politburo member Bo Xilai to death on Monday but suspended her execution, witnesses to the hearing said, ending one chapter of a scandal that has shaken the country and engulfed a leadership transition planned for later this year. The sentence means that Gu Kailai is likely to face life in jail for murdering British businessman Neil Heywood last year, provided she does not commit offences in the next two years....

Bo Xilai's wife 'was in the room when Neil Heywood was poisoned' Bo Xilai's's wife Gu Kailai, accused of murdering the British businessman Neil Heywood, confessed to police that she was in the room when he was poisoned, according to an account given to American diplomats. By Damien McElroy, Malcolm Moore in Beijing 9:00PM BST 24 Apr 2012 Wang Lijun, the former chief of police in Chongqing, told US officials that Gu Kailai had confessed that she was responsible for the killing with the words: "I did it." Mr Wang gave his account of her alleged confession to diplomats at...

The British businessman whose murder has sparked political upheaval in China was poisoned after he threatened to expose a plan by a Chinese leader's wife to move money abroad, two sources with knowledge of the police investigation said. It was the first time a specific motive has been revealed for Neil Heywood's murder last November, a death which ended Chinese leader Bo Xilai's hopes of emerging as a top central figure and threw off balance the Communist Party's looming leadership succession.

'Jackie Kennedy of China' at Center of Political Drama By JEREMY PAGE, BRIAN SPEGELE and STEVE EDER The wife of sacked Communist Party official Bo Xilai made quite an impression when she showed up in Mobile, Ala., 15 years ago with her young son in tow. Denver lawyer Ed Byrne, whom she had hired to represent Chinese companies embroiled in a legal mess in U.S. federal court, was struck by her brains, charm and beauty. Gu Kailai, he says, seemed like the "Jackie Kennedy of China." Gu Kailai was close to a British businessman who died mysteriously. . The business...