BEIJING, Sept 21, 2012 Agence France Presse: Judgment will be passed on Chinese ex-police chief Wang Lijun for defection and other crimes Monday, a court said as the scandal that brought down top politician Bo Xilai reverberated ahead of a power transfer.
Wang fled to the US consulate in Chengdu in February, sparking a crisis that saw Bo sacked and his wife convicted of murder, exposing deep divisions in the upper echelons of Chinese politics.
The timetable for the judgment on Wang is relatively quick and comes as the Communist Party attempts to contain the fall-out from the scandal ahead of the once-in-a-decade leadership transition, widely expected next month.
Foreign media and independent journalists were barred from entering the court during Wang’s trial — highlighting efforts of the authorities to manage proceedings.
“The verdict in the Wang Lijun case will be announced on September 24,” said a spokeswoman for the Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court, who gave her surname as Sheng.
At his two-day trial the ex-police chief “did not raise an objection” to accusations of defection, abuse of power, bribe-taking and bending the law for selfish ends, said a court statement issued Tuesday after the hearings ended.
Wang sought asylum from US authorities during a 33-hour stay in the consulate, according to the trial report from the official news agency Xinhua, which quoted him as saying: “I acknowledge and confess the guilt accused by the prosecuting body and show my repentance.”
Wang is almost certain to be found guilty on all charges, some of which can carry the death penalty.
But his sentence is likely to be less severe after Tuesday’s court statement quoted both prosecutors and defense saying his cooperation with authorities made him eligible for a more a lenient outcome.
Relations between Bo and Wang turned sour early this year, months after British businessman Neil Heywood, a close associate of Bo’s family, was found dead in a Chongqing hotel room.
Bo’s wife Gu Kailai was handed a suspended death sentence — usually commuted to life in prison — for Heywood’s murder last month.
Wang’s lawyer, Wang Yuncai — who is not related to her client — said that Bo was explicitly named during the trial.
The Xinhua account suggested the politician knew his wife was suspected of Heywood’s murder but did nothing, leaving him open to possible prosecution and imprisonment for sheltering a criminal.
The defense lawyer said Xinhua’s report was “accurate” but incomplete, omitting to mention that Gu had been implicated in bribery.
The court saw evidence that she had helped Wang procure a bribe from a businessman, the lawyer said, adding that a more comprehensive trial report was likely to be released after the verdict.
Bo has not been seen in public for months and faces an internal party investigation for “serious” violations of discipline.
Analysts have told AFP that the Communist Party appears to be divided on whether Bo, who still has a number of high-level political allies and some public support, should be put on criminal trial.
Wang, 52, was drafted in by Bo, then the top party official in the sprawling metropolis of Chongqing, to lead an anti-mafia crackdown in the city, which resulted in thousands of arrests.
The campaign, along with a revival of “red” or Maoist culture, was a central part of an effort by Bo to boost his profile and gain a place on China’s top decision-making body.
But it sparked widespread accusations of torture and arbitrary arrests by the Chongqing police force that Wang headed.
China sets Monday verdict in ex-police chief’s case
China sets Monday verdict in ex-police chief’s case
How a Syrian refugee chef met Britain’s King Charles
- Alarnab, 48, said he had asked the king to come to the popular eatery when he met him at Buckingham Palace
LONDON: Pots clanged and oil sizzled inside the London kitchen of Syrian chef Imad Alarnab, as the former refugee who fled his country’s civil war recalled hosting King Charles III.
When the chef left his war-torn homeland in 2015, he never imagined that one day he would watch as cameras flashed and wide-eyed crowds greeted the monarch arriving at his Soho restaurant last year.
Alarnab, 48, said he had asked the king to come to the popular eatery when he met him at Buckingham Palace before an event honoring humanitarian work in 2023.
“I told him ‘I would love for you to visit our restaurant one day’ and he said: ‘I would love to’... I was over the Moon to be honest.”
The chef has come a long way since he arrived in London after an arduous journey from Damascus with virtually no money in his pocket.
Fearing for his life, he had escaped Syria after his family was uprooted again and again by fighting.
His culinary empire — restaurants, cafes, and juice bars peppered across the Syrian capital — had been destroyed by bombing in just six days in 2013.
Alarnab spent three months crisscrossing Europe in the back of lorries, aboard trains, on foot and even on a bicycle before he reached the UK.
“When I left, I left with nothing,” he told AFP, as waiters whirled past carrying steaming plates of traditional Syrian fare.
Starving and exhausted, he spent the last of his money on a train ticket to Doncaster where his sister lived.
“Love letter from Syria”
To make a living, Alarnab initially picked up any odd jobs, such as washing and selling cars, saving enough to bring his wife and three daughters over after seven months.
His love of cooking never left him though. In France, while he was sleeping on the steps of a church, Alarnab had often cooked for hundreds of other refugees.
“I always dreamed of going back to cooking,” he said.
So it wasn’t long before he found himself back in the kitchen, cooking up a storm across London with his sold-out supper clubs, bustling pop-up cafes, and crowded lunchtime falafel bars.
Alarnab’s friends gave him the initial boost for his first pop-up in 2017, and profits from his new catering business then covered the costs of later events.
He now runs two restaurants in the city — one in Soho’s buzzing Kingly Court and another nestled in a corner of the vibrant Somerset House arts center.
“I was looking for a city to love when I found London,” Alarnab said, adding it had offered him “space to innovate” and add his own modern twist to classic Syrian dishes.
Far from home, Alarnab said his word-of-mouth success had grown into a “love letter from Syria to the world” that needs no translation.
“You don’t really need to speak Arabic or Syrian to know that this is the best falafel ever,” he said, pointing to a row of colorful plates.
“There is hope”
For Alarnab, spices frying, dough rising and cheese melting inside a kitchen offered an unlikely escape from the real world.
“All my problems, I leave them outside the kitchen and walk in fresh.”
When he fled Syria, Alarnab thought going back to Damascus was forever off the table.
Yet he returned for the first time in October, almost a year to the day after longtime leader Bashar Assad was toppled in a lightning rebel offensive — ending almost 14 years of brutal civil war.
He walked the familiar streets of his old home, where his late mother taught him to cook many years ago.
“To return to Damascus and for her not to be there, that was extremely difficult.”
Torn between the two cities, Alarnab said he longed to one day rebuild his home in Damascus.
“I wish I could go back and live there. But at the same time, I feel like London is now a part of me. I don’t know if I could ever go back and just be in Syria,” he said.
Although Syrians still bear the scars of war, Alarnab said he had seen “hope in people’s eyes which was missing when I left in 2015.”
“The road ahead is still very long, and yes this is only the beginning — but there is hope.”
