Shandong high court on Friday announced that it had rejected former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai's final appeal against his conviction for corruption, embezzlement, and abuse of power.
"The Shandong high court rejected the appeal and upheld the first instance life sentence verdict on Bo Xilai’s bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power case," Xinhua announced on Weibo.
Despite there being little chance that his appeal would be successful, photos and video posted online showed Bo looked relaxed and calm in court.
In accordance with Chinese law, Bo will not be able to file further appeals; he may submit a petition to China's supreme court, but the judges are not obliged to hear it.
"From the beginning, the verdict was not totally the court’s decision... it’s very likely that top leaders played a role," He Weifang, a law professor at Peking University told the AFP.
Attention now turns to the prison in which Bo will spend at least the next decade (former high ranking officials tend to be granted "medical parole" after a period of time has passed, regardless of the severity of their crimes). The elite Qingcheng prison, north of Beijing, is widely assumed to be Bo's next destination:
"It's like a five-star hotel," said Bao Tong, a former secretary to the ruling Communist Party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee who spent seven years in the prison for opposing the 1989 crackdown on protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Inmates at the facility -- which has housed almost all the high-ranking politicians jailed in China since the 1960s -- are given large private cells equipped with soft beds, sofas, desks and an en-suite bathroom, former residents said.
The former Communist Party boss in Shanghai, Chen Liangyu, jailed for graft in 2008, wore a western-style suit and practiced tai chi while incarcerated, Hong Kong media said.
Qincheng was expanded in the last year, with an old wall removed to make room for "pavilions, trees and grass reminiscent of a Chinese garden", the respected financial magazine Caijing reported last month.
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