[thunder_chunky]

BEIJING — The British government said on Monday that it has asked China to investigate the death of a British citizen with apparent ties to the family of Bo Xilai, the Chinese Politburo member who was dismissed this month from his post as the Communist Party secretary of Chongqing municipality.

The request could signal an important development in the controversy swirling about Mr. Bo, who was vying for a spot in China’s leadership elite until he was deposed on March 15. Neither he nor his wife have been seen or heard from since.

The British man, Neil Heywood, was found dead last November in his hotel room in Chongqing, a province-level region in south-central China. Local authorities ruled that he had died of alcohol poisoning.

The British government sought a new inquiry “based on concerns raised to us privately by British citizens in China,” a spokesman for the British Foreign Office said on Monday. “We asked the Chinese to investigate the case further, and it is up to them to take forward this investigation.”

Mr. Bo was forced to step down in a scandal involving Chongqing’s former police chief and vice mayor, Wang Lijun. Mr. Wang alleged that Mr. Bo had stripped him of his police duties and demoted him to a lower city post after Mr. Wang told him that a criminal investigation had touched on Mr. Bo’s family.

Saying he feared for his safety, Mr. Wang fled on February 6 to the American consulate in Chengdu, about 170169 miles northwest of Chongqing, where he asked for political asylum. He left the consulate about a day later and was taken by Chinese security officials to Beijing.

Chinese authorities have said they would release the results of an investigation into his activities, but have yet to do so.

Mr. Wang is understood to have alleged that Mr. Heywood was in fact poisoned, and that he had a falling out with Mr. Bo after telling him of his suspicions.

The Wall Street Journal, which reported the new inquiry on Monday, stated that Mr. Heywood had had a business dispute with Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai.

Rumors of a connection between the Wang scandal and Mr. Heywood’s death first emerged in mid-February on China’s weibos, Twitter-like microblogs.

According to people familiar with those allegations, a Chinese journalist who had been in contact with Mr. Wang received a mysterious text message on a cellphone which he had previously used to call the police chief. The message said Mr. Wang had been prevented from investigating Mr. Heywood’s death and so had been forced to seek refuge in the American consulate.

Hoping to discover who sent the text message, the journalist posted its text on microblog. Censors later deleted it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...chongqing.html

[PierceBrosnan]

Switzerland is saddened by such an event. We hope that Britain and China will investigate and act accordingly.

[rockrunride]

The UK has despatched senior diplomats from Beijing to investigate. We hope to cooperate with the Chinese authorities in thoroughly investigating the cause of Mr Heywood's death.