* Hague moves to quell speculation about Heywood
* Lawmakers had asked minister what he knew about case
By Adrian Croft
LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) – A businessman whose murder
sparked political upheaval in China was not a British spy,
Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Thursday, trying to
quell speculation that has swirled around the man’s mysterious
death.
An influential parliamentary committee had asked Hague for
more information about what Britain knew about Neil Heywood’s
death in a hotel room in the southwestern Chinese city of
Chongqinq last November, and about media speculation he may have
been a British spy or informant.
“It is long-established government policy neither to confirm
nor deny speculation of this sort,” Hague said in a letter to
Richard Ottaway, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee.
“However, given the intense interest in this case it is,
exceptionally, appropriate for me to confirm that Mr Heywood was
not an employee of the British government in any capacity,” he
wrote.
Heywood, 41, was only an “occasional contact of the embassy,
attending some meetings in connection with his business”, Hague
said, adding that he was not known to the British
Consulate-General in Chongqing.
Heywood’s relatives and a British security source also have
denied he was a spy.
Chinese police initially attributed Heywood’s death to
cardiac arrest due to drinking too much alcohol. But this month
Chinese authorities said they believed it was a murder and named
the wife of Bo Xilai, a former Communist Party chief of
Chongqing, as a suspect.
Heywood’s death ended Bo’s hopes of emerging as a national
leader and is potentially the most divisive issue the Communist
Party has faced since Zhao Ziyang was sacked as Party chief in
1989 for opposing the brutal army crackdown on student-led
demonstrations for democracy centred on Tiananmen Square in
Beijing that year.
The British foreign ministry has come under fire at home for
being slow to demand that China investigate the case.
Ottaway asked Hague last week why ministers were briefed
about Heywood’s death only in February when Foreign Office
officials were told weeks earlier about rumours among
expatriates that Heywood’s death was suspicious.
Hague said Foreign Office officials had judged at the time
that ministers did not need to be told about an “uncorroborated
report”.
Hague was not told about the case until Feb. 7, the day
after Wang Lijun, Bo’s once-trusted police chief, fled to a U.S.
consulate in an apparent attempt to secure asylum, alleging that
Bo’s wife was involved in Heywood’s death.
After discussion with Heywood’s family, Britain formally
asked China to investigate the case eight days later.
“We acted to seek an investigation as soon as we judged that
concerns about the circumstance of Mr Heywood’s death justified
it, and we are pleased that the Chinese are now investigating,”
Hague said.
(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Michael Roddy)
