China's Bo Xilai to stand trial on Thursday

Bo Xilai, a former Communist Party chief of Chongqing municipality, will stand trial Thursday for charges of bribery, graft and abuse of power, China state media reported Sunday. The disgraced politician was expelled from the Communist Party after the murder of a British businessman, triggering one of China’s biggest political scandals in decades.

The trial date was announced amid a government crackdown on corruption within the Communist Party.

Bo was a rising star in Chinese politics and the 64-year-old was being groomed for higher positions until March, 2012, when he was suspended from his position as head of Chongqing and the Communist Party’s powerful 25-member Politburo the following month.

The open trial will start at 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 22, the court said.

In September, 2012, the government accused Bo of corruption and bending the law to hush up the November, 2011, murder of Neil Heywood, after his wife Gu Kailal was named a suspect.

Finally, in July of 2013, the man once called one of China’s ‘princelings’ was indicted for bribery, corruption and abuse of power.

A media scandal erupted in April, 2012, over Bo’s lavish lifestyle and specifically over what type of luxury car his son drove while he was studying at Harvard University.

While Bo’s official salary was less than $20,000 a year, his son "attended the best schools in the world, the family had lavish apartments in London, and there are reports that their total wealth was in the realm of $136 million," the Business Insider reported.

Bo is the son of powerful Communist general Bo Yibo and he was raised in a privileged lifestyle in Beijing.

Al Jazeera