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Bo bugged phone call to China President Hu: report

China's former Chongqing Municipality Communist Party Secretary Bo Xilai (L) and former Deputy Mayor of Chongqing Wang Lijun (R) attend a session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) of the Chongqing Municipal Committee, in Chongqing municipality, January 7, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer

(Reuters) – A wiretapping network run by Chongqing

officials was detected on a phone call made to Chinese President Hu Jintao in August, a discovery that helped topple the

city’s ambitious party chief Bo Xilai, the New York Times reported.

The Times report said

nearly a dozen sources with Communist Party ties had confirmed the wiretapping and the widespread bugging program.

The

Party’s official version of events has omitted the tapped call by a visiting Chinese minister to Hu in August. If true, the

report confirms rumors of the incident that had spread since Bo’s ouster in March.

The public case has focused on the

suspicious death of British businessman Neil Heywood in November, and his alleged murder by Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, a crime

that has upset China’s carefully managed leadership transition.

“But the hidden wiretapping, previously alluded to

only in internal Communist Party accounts of the scandal, appears to have provided another compelling reason for party

leaders to turn on Mr. Bo,” the Times said.

There are varied versions of the rumors about alleged bugging by Bo, some

of which have been reported by Chinese-language media in Hong Kong and abroad.

The report confirms earlier reporting

by Reuters on the widespread, sophisticated bugging network in Chongqing set up by Bo and his former police chief Wang Lijun,

as well as rumors about the tapped phone call made by visiting anti-corruption official, Minister of Supervision Ma Wen to

Hu.

SECRET INVESTIGATIONS

Sources have also told Reuters the monitoring apparently helped Bo and Wang frustrate

secretive investigations by central authorities, including a later visit by discipline inspection officials in

January.

The Times quoted party insiders as saying the wiretapping was seen as a direct challenge to central

authorities and just how far Bo, now sacked and under probe for disciplinary violations, was willing to go in his efforts to

grasp power.

“Everyone across China

is improving their systems for the purposes of maintaining stability,” it quoted one official with a central government media

outlet, referring to surveillance tactics, as saying.

“But not everyone dares to monitor party central

leaders.”

The Times said Ma’s high-security land link to Hu from the state guesthouse in Chongqing was monitored on

Bo’s orders, and the topic of the call was unknown but probably not vital.

Bo had protected himself and Wang Lijun by

explaining away the apparent bugging of the phone call between Ma and Hu as an accident, claiming that Chongqing’s bugging

equipment would sometimes latch onto calls not meant to be monitored, a source in Chongqing who often mixes with officials

told Reuters.

It is unclear why the central authorities did not move to act more quickly against Bo, who as late as

January appeared determined to win a place in the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s topmost decision-making council,

and to enjoy the support of some senior officials, including domestic security chief, Zhou Yongkang.

“The story about

Ma Wen could be true but it also raises questions. It’s very serious, so why wait?” a source in Beijing who knows Bo and

other senior officials told Reuters.

“Wherever Bo Xilai was posted, he never got along with his superiors,” the source

said. “That was true when he was mayor of Dalian, in Liaoning, in the Ministry of Commerce. He was always suspicious of his

superiors.”

(Reporting by Chris Buckley, Benjamin Kang Lim and Brian Rhoads; Editing by Don

Durfee and Paul Tait)

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