Thursday, Aug 16 2012 6PM
Bodyguard says he saved Neil Heywood and his Chinese lover from kung-fu assassin after their affair was found out
Michael Wright protected Bournemouth flat where the murdered businessman lived with Gu Kailai
Neil Heywood lived in fear after affair with 'China's Jackie Kennedy' was exposed
Gu Kailai appeared in court on Wednesday where her lack of objection has been considered an admission of guilt
Foreign media denied access, blogs deleted, online searches disabled
Guilty verdict may lead to the death penalty
By Sam Greenhill and Sara Malm
PUBLISHED: 07:23 EST, 11 August 2012 | UPDATED: 10:17 EST, 11 August 2012
A bodyguard who protected Neil Haywood during his affair with his alleged murderer Gu Kailai has spoken of how he fought off three Chinese assassins in an attempt on the old Harrovian’s life.
Michael Wright and his team were protecting the couple during the time they shared a flat in Bournemouth and revealed that the exposure of the affair led to a serious threat to Neil Heywood's life when three men tried to break into their home.
His interview comes the days after Gu Kailai appeared in court in China accused of killing Neil Heywood after he made a threatening demand for £13million from her playboy son.
Mr Wright said the team were surprised by three Chinese henchmen under orders to kill Mr Heywood after a spy, posing as a cook, has exposed the affair in 2001.
He said the three men attempted to break into the flat using martial arts.
‘They didn’t speak any English but they wanted to get upstairs to the flat where Neil and Mrs Gu was hiding,’ Mr Wright told The Mirror.
‘They were under orders to kill someone and it was my job to stop them. I was confronted by one of the guys at the front and wrestled him to the ground to restrain him.’
‘It was brutal. Those guys wanted blood. Eventually we got the better of them and they didn’t want the British police turning up so they jumped in a car and sped off.’
The attempt on his life terrified Neil Heywood and Mrs Gu was ‘shaking like a leaf’.
Mr Wright also revealed that despite the attempt on his life Mr Haywood and Mrs Gu became increasingly relaxed about their affair and would enjoy romantic dates at local restaurants calling themselves Neil and Gu Horus for protection.
Mr Wright described Neil Heywood as a nervous ‘old English colonial’ in linen suits who would chain-smoke at least three packs a day.
Gu Kailai has admitted to Chinese police in a pre-trial interview that she lured her former lover to a hotel room where she got him drunk and then laced his drink with cyanide.
The alleged motive behind 41-year-old Mr Heywood’s grisly death was revealed at the murder trial of Mrs Gu, dubbed the Jackie Kennedy of China.
Her lawyer even argued that affable Mr Heywood, a father of two young children, ‘should bear some responsibility’ for his own murder.
Mrs Gu appeared in court on Wednesday alongside her co-accused – family bodyguard Zhang Xiajun, 33, who is alleged to have prepared the poison – where they both entered pleas but they did not contest the murder charge against them.
The court heard the Jaguar-driving Englishman had fallen into an ‘economic dispute’ with Mrs Gu’s party-loving son Bo Guagua, 24, whom Mr Heywood had once mentored to secure a place at his alma mater, Harrow School.
Mr Bo, known for a love of champagne and shisha parties while studying at Oxford University, was allegedly told by Mr Heywood: ‘If you do not give me £13million, you will be destroyed,’ the judges heard, according to a reliable source who was in the courtroom.
These threats, in an email or letter, were said to have been forwarded by Bo to his mother.
International media were banned from the highly-politicised trial, which concluded in less than seven hours in the Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern Chinese city of Hefei.
The source added that the court heard it was not the first assassination plot on Mr Heywood, with Mrs Gu having previously conspired to kill him with a local police chief.
The court’s deputy director Tang Yigan announced: ‘Gu Kailai believed that Neil Heywood had threatened the personal safety of her son Bo and decided to kill him.’
Gu summoned him to Chongqing, the mega-city in southwestern China where her husband was Communist Party Secretary, on November 13 last year.
They drank tea and wine together in room 1605 of the ‘Lucky Holiday Hotel’, before Mr Heywood became drunk and was sick.
After he had vomited, Gu, 53, helped him drink a glass of water – which she had mixed with a lethal draft of potassium cyanide.
A student who was allowed to witness the case said Gu had appeared ‘calm’, despite the possibility she could be sentenced to death.
‘There were no tears. Both looked quite calm, peaceful. Both said they accepted the court’s authority,’ said the student.
Mr Tang said prosecutors believed the facts of the ‘brutal’ crime were clear and backed by ‘ample evidence’, and that ‘Gu Kailai is the main culprit and Zhang is the accomplice’.
Gu had reportedly made a full confession to police, which it was in her interests to do because it will act in her favour during sentencing deliberations.
The judges reserved their verdict to an unspecified date within the next 30 days
She will almost certainly be found guilty, but could be spared the executioner’s bullet because of her defence that she was only trying to protect her son.
In a bid to further lighten her sentence, Gu was said to have made accusations about ‘other people’s crimes’, although no details were given.
Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin
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