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Fallen Leader Is Indicted in China

Edward Wong and

BEIJING — Bo Xilai, the disgraced former Communist Party official, was indicted on Thursday on criminal charges of bribery, corruption and abuse of power, paving the way for a prominent trial expected to start within weeks that could be a climactic chapter in a scandal that exposed sordid political machinations at the top levels of the party.

The charges were filed at a court in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province, in eastern China, a court employee said. Mr. Bo was removed in March 2012 from his senior post as party chief of Chongqing, a municipality of 30 million in southwest China. He was later expelled from the Communist Party and its elite 25-member Politburo.

Officials from Shandong have been in Chongqing recently to discuss trial details there, according to one person in Chongqing with official contacts.

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Bo Xilai would be the first Politburo member to be tried on criminal charges since 2008.Credit...Jason Lee/Reuters

The party’s General Office has circulated an internal document giving further details of the basis for the charges, said one person in Beijing with high-level contacts. The document accused Mr. Bo, 64, of taking about $3.3 million in bribes, embezzling almost $1 million and abusing his power as a senior official. The document also said a main source of the bribes was Xu Ming, a billionaire who lives in Dalian, the northeastern city where Mr. Bo had been the mayor.

Mr. Xu, once listed by Forbes as one of the 10 richest people in China, has been detained since spring 2012 and is also expected to be criminally charged. Mr. Xu entered into real estate ventures in Chongqing after Mr. Bo became party chief there in December 2007, and he made frequent trips on his private plane to the city. Mr. Xu was part of an inner circle of Bo family allies that included Ma Biao, a business executive, and Yu Junshi, a former military intelligence officer who served as a Bo family fixer. All were detained in spring 2012.

Last August, Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, was given a suspended death sentence, which usually equals a life prison term, for murdering Neil Heywood, a British business executive whose body was discovered in a Chongqing hotel room in November 2011. In February 2012, the Chonging police chief, Wang Lijun, fled to a nearby American consulate to tell officials there of the murder.

Several political analysts said Mr. Bo’s punishment could range from a prison term of 15 to 20 years to a suspended death sentence. Like those of his wife, Mr. Bo’s upcoming court sessions are expected to amount to little more than a show trial, in which a verdict has already been negotiated by Communist Party leaders.

Mr. Bo would be the first Politburo member to be tried on criminal charges since 2008, when the former Shanghai party secretary Chen Liangyu was sentenced to 18 years in prison for corruption.

Shi Da contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Fallen Leader May Face Trial Soon In China. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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