Fallen Official's Trial Begins in China Jinan Intermediate People's Court, via Associated Press In this photo released by the court, Bo Xilai, center, on the first day of his corruption trial on Thursday at the Jinan Intermediate People's Court. JINAN, China - The trial of Bo Xilai, the fallen Communist Party aristocrat, began Thursday morning in a closed-door hearing in this eastern provincial capital after security officers, journalists and some supporters of the charismatic Mr. Bo had fanned out in the streets around a downtown courthouse, looking for signs of how the session might unfold. A microblog post by the court said that Mr. Bo was brought in around 8:50 a.m., and that the prosecution read out the charges against him. Before 11:30 a.m., the court posted a photograph of Mr. Bo standing in a white-collared shirt and black pants between two police officers. His hair was cut relatively short, and he stared ahead with a bemused look, his eyebrows slightly raised. The morning session ended with Mr. Bo denying having taken 1.1 million renminbi, or $180,000, in bribes from a businessman named Tang Xiaolin. The amount was a fraction of the more than 21 million renminbi in bribes that he and his immediate family members are accused of taking. Prosecutors said another businessman, Xu Ming, gave more than 20.6 million renminbi in bribes. In the afternoon, some of the evidence related to Mr. Xu was presented, and Mr. Bo rejected accusations of wrongdoing in those instances too. The evidence included discussion of a villa in southern France that supposedly formed a substantial part of the bribes. The testimony from Mr. Tang was presented in a video in the courtroom, and written testimony from Gu Kailai, Mr. Bo's wife, who is now in prison, was read aloud. Mr. Bo called his wife's testimony "comical," and of Mr. Tang he said: "By watching the video footage of Tang Xiaolin, I really see an ugly performance from a person who sold his soul." Detained by security officials since March 2012, Mr. Bo was indicted in late July on charges of corruption, taking bribes and abuse of power. The charges came almost one year after Ms. Gu was given a suspended death sentence for murdering Neil Heywood, a British family associate. The trial that began Thursday is expected to be the final blow to Mr. Bo's vaunted political career. Until last year, he was one of 25 Politburo members and the party chief of the municipality of Chongqing; he had even been considered a candidate for one of the very highest party posts, which were handed out last November. Like the obsession with royal families in other countries, many Chinese are alternately fascinated and repelled by the princelings, whose ranks include Mr. Bo and Xi Jinping, China's top leader. What Mr. Bo would say - or be allowed to say - in court has been one of the central questions hovering over the trial. On Monday, Mr. Bo's youngest son, Bo Guagua, 25, who is in orientation week at Columbia Law School, said in a statement to The New York Times that he hoped his father would be "granted the opportunity to answer his critics and defend himself without constraints of any kind." And the announcement last Sunday of the trial date indicated that the top ranks of the party had remained united on how to deal with Mr. Bo. Political analysts said the exact charges and their substance had been calibrated to ensure that the public could accept officials" handing Mr. Bo a long prison sentence, probably 15 to 20 years or a life term. Correction: August 22, 2013 An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that testimony from Gu Kailai, Bo Xilai's wife, was presented in video form during Mr. Bo's trial on Thursday. Ms. Gu's testimony was read aloud.