Exclusive | Former Bo Xilai family aide jailed over murder of UK businessman Neil Heywood ‘released early’
Zhang Xiaojun said to have paid his respects at grave of late revolutionary Bo Yibo during family gathering
A former aide to the family of disgraced Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai, who helped Bo’s wife in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, has been released from jail much earlier than expected, a source close the Bo family said.
The poisoning of the Briton in late 2011 set off a chain of events that eventually led to China’s biggest political scandal in decades, ending with the imprisonment of Bo, who had been a rival to President Xi Jinping in the lead-up to the leadership transition in late 2012.
Zhang Xiaojun, 39, joined Bo family members to pay his respects at the grave of Bo Yibo – Bo Xilai’s late father and a Communist Party elder – at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing on Monday, the 11th anniversary of his death, the source told the South China Morning Post.
“This is the first time Zhang has appeared at a family gathering like this. When he was working for the family, he would not have been included in this,” the source said.
“But he’s had a hard time and sacrificed a lot – he spent more than five years in jail for this family.”
