Posted on 01/01/2015 2:34:13 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Inside the infamous Ferrari crash that brought down Ling Jihua
Staff Reporter 2015-01-01 13:29 (GMT+8)
More stunning details have been revealed about the infamous Ferrari crash that killed the only son of fallen senior Chinese official Ling Jihua and sent his once promising political career into a tailspin.
Ling, best known as the "political fixer" of former president Hu Jintao, has been placed under a probe for unspecified "serious discipline violations, according to a statement from the Central Inspection for Discipline Inspection, the country's top anti-graft watchdog.
The 58-year-old once appeared destined for a seat on the Communist Party's elite 25-member Politburo at the 18th National Conference in November 2012, but just two months prior to the conference he was demoted from his position as head of the party's General Office to the United Front Work Department. It was widely speculated at the time that Ling had fallen out of favor with party leaders for attempting to cover up a deadly car crash involving son in March that year. Reports of the incident had been censored in China until authorities officially announced their investigation into Ling on Dec. 22, 2014.
There are many versions of what exactly happened in the "Ferrari incident," as it has been called in China. The version pieced together by Chinese media is as follows: at around 4am on March 18, 2012, a black Ferrari Spider speeding east on Beijing's 4th Ring Road smashed into the southern wall of an overpass before crashing into a north-side railing. The car, which was nearly split in two, was carying a male driver and two female passengers of an ethnic minority, all of whom were tossed from the vehicle during the crash. The driver, identified as Ling Gu, died from his injuries, while the two passengers were taken to hospital with serious injuries.
At the time, some reports indicated that one of the women was found completely naked, leading to suggestions that Ling Gu was taking part in a sex game when the crash occurred. Since the probe into Ling Jihua was announced, however, the supposed "only witness" of the crash came forward to refute the claim, saying that all three were fully clothed.
Some overseas media reports alleged that Ling refused to identify the body as that of his son at the morgue, and that his attempt to cover up the crash and save his career forced him into forging an alliance with former security tsar Zhou Yongkang and his close ally Bo Xilai. The retired Zhou, a former member of the Communist Party's all-powerful Poliburo Standing Committee and head of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission at the time, was expelled from the party last month and faces criminal charges. Meanwhile Bo, the disgraced former party chief of Chongqing, continues to serve the life sentence handed to him in September 2013 for embezzlement, taking bribes and abuse of power.
Other foreign media reported in the aftermath of the incident that former state assets chief Jiang Jiemin, who was detained by authorities in September 2013, transferred large sums of money into bank accounts belonging to the families of the two surviving passengers in order to buy their silence.
More recently, a Hong Kong media outlet reported that though both women survived their injuries in the crash, one of them later died in mysterious circumstances.
Earlier this week, China's Caixin media group reported that Ling Jihua's brother-in-law Gu Yuanxu, the deputy director of Heilongjiang's provincial public security bureau, had been apprehended by anti-graft authorities. Sources indicate that Gu had been a key player in covering up the Ferrari crash, having on three occasions tampered with evidence and destroyed records to distance Ling Jihua from the scandal. He allegedly forced the two female passengers to falsely identify Ling Gu as a different man surnamed Jia, and paid each of their families 15 million yuan (US$2.42 million) to buy their cooperation and silence. Additionally, Gu was said to have threatened the women, telling them that he would get them expelled from university and make them and their families "disappear" if they ever told anyone the truth.
Dissident writer Yuan Hongbing wrote in his new book that Ling activated central police forces and military vehicles to lock down the scene of the crash so he could control the evidence. This brash act of self-preservation was said to have angered PLA General Logistics Department commissar Liu Yuan — son of former president Liu Shaoqi — the PLA graft-buster credited with bringing down corrupt generals like Xu Caihou and Gu Junshan. Liu and his other PLA princelings — Liu Yazhou, former political commissar of China's National Defense University, and Zhang Haiyang, the recently retired political commissar of the PLA Second Artillery Corps — reportedly tolerated the rumors surrounding Ling for three months before reporting his misdeeds to central authorities, sparking his dramatic fall from grace.
P!
The tigers as well as the flies in the Chinese government are equally corrupt.
Number One grievance of Chinese people is officials who appropriate public wealth to enrich themselves and act in their own interests.
History is repeating itself. The biggest threat to the Party is becoming like the Kuomintang.
And who knows how long its Mandate From Heaven will last?
Be involved in one over here, and you become United States Senator from Massachusetts.
All over the world leftists show once in power they ruthlessly abuse it while still lecturing the masses about the evils of capitalism.
“officials who appropriate public wealth to enrich themselves and act in their own interests.”
Same s%&t, different countries.
Ling should have immediately called Ted Kennedy’s fixers. Things like this should not happen to great men.
So China has its version of Ted Kennedy?
President Xi Jinping, who also holds the positions of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, is using the theme of anti-corruption to mask his grab for total power in Red China.
Like Mao Zedong’s big campaigns [five-anti campaign, Hundred Flowers Campaign, Cultural Revolution] Xi Jingping is using “reforms” to to wreak revenge on those who may dare to challenge him.
China is a military dictatorship founded on socialist ideas and total power is the paramount goal of anyone who climbs to the leadership position.
If only we had people like PLA General Logistics Department commissar Liu Yuan to help bring corrupt people to justice. All we have are those that hold endless meetings in congress which end with a whimper and the corrupt politicians still in power.
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