Gu Kailai is the wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai. On August 20, 2012 she was found guilty of the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood and given a death sentence, suspended for two years. Her sentence is expected to be commuted to life imprisonment. Explore this topic

Bo Xilai is a former Chinese politician. He came to prominence through his tenures as the mayor of Dalian and then governor of Liaoning province. From 2004 to November 2007, he served as Minister of Commerce. Between 2007 and 2012 he served as a member of the Central Politburo... Explore this topic

Neil Heywood was a British businessman who worked in China. He was associated with Bo Xilai, the former Communist Party of China Committee Secretary for Chongqing and a member of the Chinese Politburo. Heywood was found dead in his hotel room in Chongqing, and the initial offi... Explore this topic

China, officially the People's Republic of China, is a sovereign state located in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the cap... Explore this topic

Chongqing is a major city in Southwest China and one of the five national central cities in the People's Republic of China. Administratively, it is one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities, and the only such municipality in inland China. The municipality was crea... Explore this topic

A suspended sentence is a legal term for a judge's delaying of a defendant's serving of a sentence after they have been found guilty, in order to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation. If the defendant does not break the law during that period, and fulfills the ... Explore this topic

The Communist Party of China, also known as the Chinese Communist Party, is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China. Although nominally it exists alongside the United Front, a coalition of governing political parties, in practice, the CPC is t... Explore this topic

Capital punishment or the death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The judicial decree that someone be punished in this manner is a death sentence, while the actual process of killing the person is an execution... Explore this topic

In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, which may occur before a judge, jury, or other designated tr... Explore this topic

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide. As the loss of a human being inflicts enormous grief upon the individuals close to the victim, and the commi... Explore this topic