CNPC boss paid to silence women in Ling Gu Ferrari crash: report
Staff Reporter 2012-11-15 13:21
Rumors began to spread about Jiang Jiemin earlier this year after he was not seen in public for some time. (Photo/CNS)
Jiang Jiemin, the chairman of state-owned oil company PetroChina or CNPC, is said to have transferred millions of dollars to the families of two young women involved in the car crash which killed the son of Ling Jihua, the top aide of Chinese leader Hu Jintao. The women and their families were also warned not to speak out about what had happened or face fatal reprisals.
On March 18, Ling Gu slammed his black Ferrari into a wall on Beijing's Fourth Ring Road. He was killed outright while two young women in the car — rumored to be ethnic Tibetans and in a state of undress — were seriously injured, according to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.
Gu Yuanxu, the younger brother of Ling Jihua's wife, and Zhou Benchun, a member of the 11th Internal and Judicial Affairs Committee of National People's Congress, allegedly made Beijing police change the name and the address on the Ling Gu's ID card and forced the injured women to sign documents to "prove" that the driver was surnamed Jia instead of Ling, reports Boxun, a citizen journalism site that often makes claims that are difficult to prove.
The families of the two women were forced to agree to keep the details of the car crash from the public, in exchange for 15 million yuan (US$2.4 million) in compensation per person. If they refused, they would be kicked out of their jobs and their lives would be in danger. They were told that their family members would disappear and their bodies would never be found, according to Boxun.
The South China Morning Post reported that the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the country's top government watchdog, found that PetroChina moved the large sum of money out without leaving any documents. It also highlighted the negligence of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.
Jiang is said to have been willing to help Ling in the hope of future favors for his political career but Ling was reassigned to a mainly symbolic post in September, a move observers believe was related to the incident. After Jiang was not seen in public for some time, rumors spread that he had fled to another country or was seriously ill in hospital. CNPC quickly issued a statement saying Jiang had taken part in in a company meeting in September, while the state news agency Xinhua also said that its magazine department had interviewed Jiang on a gas transmission project shortly after that, according to South China Morning Post.
Discussion of the notorious incident was blocked on the internet, meaning that many reports concerning the case have struggled to separate fact from rumor.
