Wang Lijun, police chief at center of Bo Xilai scandal, stands trial BEIJING - Wang Lijun, a flamboyant former police chief whose dramatic flight to a U.S. Consulate triggered China's biggest political scandal in decades, was accused in open court Tuesday of covering up a murder and taking bribes. Government prosecutors and a lawyer said Wang did not dispute the charges. Wang, who headed the police department in Chongqing, also has been charged with attempting to defect, because of his overnight stay at the U.S. Consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu. That portion of the trial, dealing with his flight to the consulate and with illegal wiretapping, was heard in a closed-door session Monday. Sentencing on all the charges was expected to come at a later date, with many analysts predicting he would be spared the death penalty. Wang's Feb. 6 trip to the U.S. Consulate eventually toppled his boss, Chongqing Communist Party chief Bo Xilai, the son of a Mao-era revolutionary hero who had been widely tipped for promotion to a senior job in a leadership reshuffle at a party congress later this year. Bo was ousted from the party's ruling Politburo and its Central Committee after Wang revealed that Bo's wife was involved in the poisoning death last year of a British businessman, Neil Heywood. The scandal not only sidelined Bo - one of China's most popular and charismatic leaders - but it exposed a web of corruption, power and privilege at the highest levels of elite politics. Bo's removal seemed to upset the party's carefully-choreographed transition to the next generation of leaders, with continued factional infighting delaying even the announcement of a date for the upcoming party congress. Wang's case also has provoked some criticism of the Obama administration. Some political opponents have said the United States should have granted the police chief asylum. In many ways, Wang, since his decision to seek refuge at the American Consulate, has been reduced to something of a bit player in the ongoing drama - the man who single-handedly sparked the scandal and brought down Bo, but whose own role and fate have become something of an afterthought. Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, confessed last month to poisoning Heywood in a business dispute involving her son. Bo has not been heard from in months, as he awaits word of his fate. According to some unconfirmed accounts, he is being moved among various government residences in Hebei province, Inner Mongolia and the outer suburbs of Beijing. Wang also had not been seen or heard from publicly since he was escorted by Chinese security agents to Beijing from the U.S. Consulate. In footage shown Tuesday on state-run China Central Television, he looked relaxed in a white open-collar shirt and with his trademark dark-rimmed eyeglasses. Wang's wife, daughter and younger brother listened to the court proceedings Tuesday, said Wang Yuncai, a defense lawyer who is not related to the former police chief. "Wang Lijun's mood is okay," the lawyer said. After the court this afternoon, the family and I met Wang Lijun for about 20 minutes together. They didn't talk much about the case and aren't allowed to," she said. The family hadn't seen him for a long time.