Hu Shuli, the editor of Caixin, one of China's leading magazines, wrote in an editorial that if there had been a business quarrel between Mrs Gu and Mr Heywood, they "could have used economic channels or a civil lawsuit to resolve it."
Mrs Hu, who has 1.9 million followers on QQ Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter, added that "the fact that Heywood was willing to meet BoGu by himself and drink tea and liquor with her indicates that he was not on the verge of murdering her son. The dispute had not reached that level. It is obvious that her argument does not add up."
Other observers in the court in Hefei noted that an email between Mr Heywood and Bo Guagua, Mrs Gu's 24-year-old son, may have been mistranslated.
While the prosecution claimed that Mr Heywood threatened to "destroy" the younger Bo, and therefore wanted to kill him, the actual word used may have been "damage", referring perhaps to Mr Bo's reputation.
Mr Heywood's friends have said he would not have harmed Mr Bo, or kidnapped him, as claimed in court. Last November, when Mrs Gu claimed she feared for the safety of her son, he was studying in Harvard and Mr Heywood was living in Beijing.
To the surprise of many observers, Bo Xilai was not mentioned in court during his wife's trial. Nor did Patrick Devillers, the French architect who agreed to return from Cambodia to China to give evidence, appear.
Even Mr Bo's staunchest enemies, such as He Weifang, a law professor at Beijing university, doubted the evidence presented against Mrs Gu.
"Her hasty trial left more questions than it answered," wrote Mr He on his microblog. "Her motive for deciding to murder was to protect her son; is there any solid evidence that her son's life was in danger? As she was a lawyer with rich international experience, the rational choice would have been for her to report the case to Scotland Yard."
"It's absurd that she would kill someone herself," he added.
"Moreover, Mr Heywood apparently did not drink. What wiles did she use to get him so thoroughly drunk? Witnesses who should have appeared in court – the most important of which were her husband and former Police Chief Wang Lijun – were utterly absent. None of the other relevant witnesses appeared in court, either. This kind of trial is just a show to cover up the truth," he wrote.
Some Chinese observers have even questioned whether the lady who appeared in court earlier this month was even Mrs Gu. Eagle-eyed internet sleuths have identified the woman, who was noticeably heavier-set than Mrs Gu appears from her photographs, to be Zhao Tianyun, a 46-year-old from Hebei province.
In the past, rich Chinese have remarkably been able to hire body doubles to serve prison sentences for them, with the most recent allegations involving a case in Shenzhen where a 29 year-old construction worker confessed to a drink-driving accident in a sports car in which three people died. The Chinese authorities were forced to issue a statement denying that a wealthy culprit had hired the construction worker to take the rap.
However, Jiang Weiping, a Chinese journalist who was imprisoned by the Bos and who now lives in Toronto, said the real Mrs Gu had appeared in court.
Additional reporting by Valentina Luo
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