China pays back millions of pounds to Bo Xilai's victims – but keeps them in jail
Hundreds of millions of pounds of confiscated assets are being quietly returned to victims of Bo Xilai, but their prison sentences have not been reversed
Chongqing's former Communist party chief Bo Xilai duriung his court case Photo: AP
By Malcolm Moore, Chongqing
2:40PM GMT 18 Nov 2013
Earlier this year, a phone rang in the offices of Yuxi Bandao, one of the largest construction companies in China's city of Chongqing.
On the other end of the line, a policeman was ready with some good news.
After three years, 2 billion yuan (£200 million) in the company's bank account was being unfrozen.
It was a tacit admission by the police that the company had been wrongly victimised under the regime of Chongqing's former Communist party chief, Bo Xilai.
Yuxi Bandao was one of hundreds of companies targeted by Mr Bo and his "iron-fisted" police chief, Wang Lijun, during a two-year terror campaign known as "Smash the Black!".
Mr Bo painted the campaign, which arrested 7,400 people between 2009 and 2011 according to official statements, as a mission to rid Chongqing of its mafia.
But it was also a way for Mr Bo to destroy his opponents and to grab money from the city's private sector. According to the Chongqing Daily newspaper, nearly £7 billion was confiscated from detainees.
Many speculate that Mr Bo needed the money to fund the lavish public works projects that endeared him to the working class, but left the city close to bankruptcy.
Now, the money is being returned. But there is a catch: Yuxi Bandao's chairman, Wang Neng, a well-connected tycoon who also sat on Chongqing's People's Congress, the city's legislative council, is still in jail. He was given a life sentence after Mr Bo branded him a gangster.
"The Smash the Black campaign really hurt the city's economy," said Deng Jiwei, a mild, bespectacled, 56-year-old lawyer who formerly advised Mr Wang. "Private companies were paralysed and to get them going again, they needed to give the money back to the private sector," he explained.
Mr Bo may have been brought down, jailed for life in autumn for corruption and abuse of power, but the situation in Chongqing remains precarious, said one former government official in the city, who asked not to be named.
Building projects in several districts have been stalled, some journalists in state-owned newspapers are not being regularly paid, and even government officials have seen their salaries suspended at times, he said.
"I think they will get around to reopening the cases, but it is hard to say how long it will take," said Mr Deng.
"First, there are so many that need to be reviewed. And then all the people who were wrongly convicted are sitting in prison; there is no urgent pressure to resolve their cases, or at least it is not as important as fixing the city's economy," he added.
Only three people out of the thousands jailed have so far had their sentences reversed, said Mr Deng. "They are going about it very cautiously".
Mr Deng himself was jailed and put on trial for "sheltering" Mr Wang by giving him legal advice.
He was cycled through several detention centres, specially rented by the police for the Smash the Black campaign. "The centres have all been shut down now. I was treated mercifully compared to others, but it was still bad," he said.
"I became a number: A0045-41. 'A' designated me as a 'serious enemy' and 0045 was the police team that handled my case. My number was 41."
"They strapped me to a bench and threw cold water on me to keep me awake. Two giant air conditioners blasted cold air on me. Every so often they would bring me papers to sign. If I signed, they would loosen my restraints. If I did not, they tightened them."
Another billionaire tycoon tortured under Mr Bo's regime, 47-year-old Li Jun, remains on the run overseas, surviving thanks to church handouts. Mr Li is on "List B" of China's most-wanted criminals.
The authorities in Chongqing have returned 200 million yuan of the roughly 270 million yuan confiscated after Mr Li was branded a gangster in October 2010.
But Mr Li said he had "no confidence at all" that the criminal case against him will be dropped.
After being tortured for several weeks in a military facility at the beginning of 2010, Mr Li was freed after he agreed to pay a fine of 40 million yuan.
But nine months later, when he heard the police had raided one of his nightclubs, he knew the authorities were after him again. He divorced his wife, to protect her, and fled overseas.
"Lots of people loyal to Bo Xilai remain in Chongqing, in the courts and the local government. They will continue to hunt me," he said. "Some churches give me money to live on and I am always alone. I keep hiding and moving from one place to another."
In Chongqing, a senior manager at Junfeng, Mr Li's company, said his boss had been targeted after he faced down the local government when it tried to seize two tracts of land.
The company was one of the most successful property developers in Chongqing. Its "Shangri La" estate is home to several government officials and, in an attempt to curry favour with Mr Bo, boasts several Gingko trees, his favourite, at its front gates.
But when the firm was targeted, its bank accounts were frozen and the money transferred to the police. "When we wanted to pay our staff, we had to go to the police for permission." At least eleven of the company's managers are still in prison serving lengthy sentences, the manager said, including Mr Li's brother and his nephew.
"Our priority now is to get our staff out of prison. We began filing appeals in March last year. In September or October we heard some judges from the No 1 Intermediate court had visited them in prison. That might be a good sign. Our lawyers say we cannot know how long it will take, however," he said.
"In my experience it is very difficult to change a verdict," said Mr Deng, outlining a four-step appeal process. "First you go to the original court, then to a special commission to examine new evidence. Then it goes to a judging commission and finally to a supervisory committee which initiates a fresh trial," he said.
"It is not easy to say how long the process will take."
Additional reporting by Adam Wu
