Gu photo sparks "body double" rumors, censorship

A photo combination reportedly forwarded among Chinese Internet users shows Gu Kailai, the wife of a disgraced politician, in court, left, and an older picture of her, raising suspicions that a body double was used in court.

(CBS News) A pair of pictures circulating among Chinese Internet users has sparked cries that China pulled a switcheroo involving a disgraced politician's wife convicted of murdering a British businessman.

The pictures, seen at left, show the wife, Gu Kailai, in court and in an undated older picture. Gu received a suspended death sentence Monday for killing Neil Heywood in a case that threatened to mire the country's ruling Communist Party in scandal.

"We don't even know for sure that's her in court," Zhang Ming, a political science professor at Beijing's Renmin University, told CBS News. "Many people doubt it. The woman does not look like Gu herself."

The growing speculation over the differences between the two pictures prompted Chinese authorities to block the term for "body replacement" from one of country's popular microblogging services and its biggest search engine, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

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Video: Gu Kailai murder trial quick and quiet

The photo combination identifies the woman in court as 46 years old and from Langfang, China, but no concrete evidence has come to light substantiating the claims, the newspaper reports.

Indeed, the Journal cites state media's reporting of Gu's "dependence" on antidepressants and antipsychotics, which may cause weight gain, as a possible explanation of her change in appearance.

Even people who know Gu can't agree whether the person in court is her:

"It doesn't matter how fat a woman becomes, the shape of her ears will never change," the adopted sister of Gu's husband told the Want China Times, a newspaper in Taiwan, according to the Journal.

"I know her too well," a Chinese journalist living in Canada who covered Gu's husband told the Journal. "That's her."

Additional reporting by Shuai Zhang in the CBS News Beijing bureau

[jefforsythe]

The truth of the matter is that this guy Bo is just another brutal Chinese Communist Party gangster who was trying to hide his heinous acts of organ harvesting of living adults and children, basically Falun Gong practitioners, Heywood had been helping him to launder his money and she was afraid that he was just about to spill the beans. There are approx. one hundred million Falun Gong practitioners living in mainland China who have been made to hide their beliefs in truthfulness, goodness and tolerance because of a brutal attempted genocide by the Chinese Communist Party.
With so many practitioners from all walks of life, including the cruel Party itself, Falun Gong has a clear picture of exactly what is going on in China, socially as well as politically. Falun Gong is a heart and mind cultivation practice which has no political ambitions whatsoever, but is just trying to inform the World of the cruelty of the CCP. Thank you for your consideration.

[expatriate2]

A trick China learned from the U.S. and the famous bin Laden videos.

[rickstas]

Lol.

[Yofee2]

Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both. -- John F. Kennedy

[micmac666]

'No double. Look at lips, nose, eybrows. 'Just weight gain.

[Dukme]

Why is this so surprise to everyone? China is #1 in cloning/pirating anything. Putting a clone in place commits the clone to go to prison for life, not Gu herself.

[Chengisk]

But but but it is China we are talking about. They do not care.... They have their real lives in an alternate universe.