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 theÂ Jinan Intermediate People's Court.  JINAN, China â Bo Xilai, the politician who fell from the heights of Chinaâs elite, took a pugnacious and defiant stand on Thursday in the opening session of Chinaâs most closely watched trial in decades, denying that he took millions of dollars in bribes and ridiculing his wifeâs testimony against him.  According to lengthy transcripts the court released in an extraordinary show of transparency, Mr. Bo, 64, called his wifeâs assertions that she had noticed anonymous deposits in their bank account âlaughable.â He accused a businessman who had recorded video testimony against him of having âsold his soul.â And he discounted his earlier confession to taking bribes, saying he had made the statements to Communist Party investigators against his will, out of âopportunism and weaknessâ and under âmental strain.â  The authoritiesâ unexpected openness about the trial, including allowing a running court microblog and social media updates by state media organizations, turned what many had expected to be banal theater into a showcase of Mr. Boâs defiance.  The dramatic day raised questions about how party officials would continue to steer a delicate political process that has captivated Chinese scrutinizing it on the Internet.  Officials set up a press center in a hotel across the street from the court in this eastern provincial capital. There, dozens of foreign journalists and a handful of reporters for Chinese state media gazed at large-screen televisions streaming the court microblog feed. When the first photograph from the trial was posted before 11:30 a.m., showing the 6-foot-1 Mr. Bo standing with a bemused look between two towering police officers, journalists charged the televisions and snapped photos.  Dressed in a white shirt and black pants with his hair neatly trimmed, Mr. Bo displayed some of the showmanship he deployed in climbing to the party-chief post in Chongqing municipality and the elite Politburo, before he was felled last year by a scandal involving the death of a British businessman, a case in which his wife, Gu Kailai, was convicted of murder. Mr. Bo is also charged with abuse of power over allegations he obstructed an investigation into the death, and with embezzlement.  There were limits to the transparency. One person briefed on the proceedings said that some court testimony did not appear in the released transcripts. And by evening, censors had sanitized the comments section of the Jinan court microblog, so that many remarks skeptical of the justice process had been removed.  Analysts said that publicizing the hearing was the partyâs attempt to lend legitimacy to a trial in which a guilty verdict and long prison sentence are almost certainly preordained.  The hearing was not as public as the notorious trial in 1980 of the Gang of Four blamed for the havoc of the Cultural Revolution, which was televised. But officials issued about 60 real-time updates over the court microblog, eliciting bursts of online commentary.  âThis is the most open trial of its kind, certainly the most open among the ones we have seen recently,â He Weifang, a liberal law professor at Peking University, said in a telephone interview. âHe seems to be speaking his mind, judging from his speech and the words he used.â  But over all, he added, âthe whole court is controlled by Beijing.â  On Twitter, Nicholas Bequelin, an Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said, âEven though Bo rejects the accusations against him, he is still playing ball in what is, in essence, a scripted piece of political theater.â  The partyâs efforts at forging an aura of legitimacy could backfire. If evidence released during the trial proves flimsy, the public could side with the defiant Mr. Bo, whose Maoist slogans and new brand of socialism bolstered his popularity in Chongqing.  Mr. Bo insisted that he knew nothing of a villa on the French Riviera that prosecutors said Ms. Gu bought in 2000 with $3.2 million from Xu Ming, a young tycoon, or about a hot-air balloon venture between the two. He denied knowledge of a $16,000 trip to Africa made by his youngest son, Bo Guagua, and his friends; an $18,000 Segway-like vehicle that Mr. Xu bought for the son; and $50,000 of debt on the sonâs credit card that Mr. Xu paid off.  He said he did not know much about his wife and sonâs expenses, because Ms. Gu was âa person of culture and taste, a modern intellectual woman,â so they did not discuss money.  Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Hong Kong. Patrick Zuo contributed research from Jinan, and Mia Li and Shi Da from Beijing.  This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:  An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that testimony from Gu Kailai, Bo Xilaiâs wife, was presented in video form during Mr. Boâs trial on Thursday. Ms. Guâs testimony was read aloud.
Bo Xilai, once a rising star in the Communist Party, rejected accusations that he took bribes and called testimony from his wife âcomical.â