Was Neil Heywood, murdered by Bo Xilai's family, an MI6 agent?

BEIJING: He drove a Jaguar with 007 licence number and flaunted his connections with the MI6 as well as the cream of Chinese Communist Party. A year after British businessman Neil Heywood's murder, for which then Communist Party boss Bo Xilai and his wife Gu Kailai were implicated, the Wall Street Journal has reported that he worked for the British secret service, the MI6.
The revelations, if true, will punch holes in Beijing's claim that Gu killed Heywood because of a business dispute and also because she feared the Briton might harm her son.
The newspaper said Heywood reported to an MI6 officer about the goings-on in the lives of Bo, the party chief in Chongqing and a member of the Polit Bureau that contains China's top 25 leaders. Bo, who was tipped for the nine-member all-powerful standing committee, was sacked as provincial chairman and finally thrown out of the party early this month. Gu was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder.
Neither the Chinese nor the British government have so far given any indication about the Briton's spying links. When asked about the report, the Chinese foreign ministry took a rare stand that the Bo case would be handled both according to the rules of the Communist Party and the laws of the country. The ministry does not usually mention the party in its briefings because it is supposed to represent the government.
The revelation is also likely to cause embarrassment in London because British foreign secretary William Hague had categorically said, “Heywood was not an employee of the British government in any capacity.” It also raised questions on why the British government did not request an autopsy and allowed the Chinese authorities to cremate his body without proper forensic investigations.
London had requested Beijing to reopen investigations only after Wang Lijun, then police chief of Chongqing, had sought shelter in a US consulate and told officials that Gu had claimed to have “killed a spy”. There are signs the US shared the information supplied by Wang with the British.
The Chinese government either failed to keep a tab on Heywood or used him to spy on the Bo family, sources said. Question are being asked about whether the British authorities shared Heywood's information with some Chinese leaders to help them settle scores with Bo.