A forthcoming book by Chinese journalists Pin Ho and Wenguang Huang claims that Wang Lijun unsuccessfully sought asylum from the U.K. months before entering the U.S. consulate in Chengdu last year, adding yet more ingredients to the well-cooked story of Chongqing’s former police chief and his superior, Bo Xilai. The book, A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel, is to be published in the U.K. in April. From Tom Phillips at The Telegraph:
In November 2011, just days after Mr Heywood’s body was discovered inside a Chongqing hotel room, Mr Wang allegedly disguised himself as an “old man” and “snuck” into the British Consulate-General in the city of Guangzhou.
[…] A spokesperson for the British Embassy in Beijing said: “We don’t have any record of any such meeting. We have no record of Wang Lijun visiting the consulate at that time.”
[…] Before fleeing to the US consulate in Chengdu on February 6 2012, Mr Wang “contacted officials at the consulates of the United Kingdom and Germany in Chongqing”.
British officials have confirmed that Mr Wang did set up a meeting at the UK consulate in Chongqing but say he failed to show up.
See more on Wang Lijun and Bo Xilai via CDT.
