3 cases from China
Convicted: Gu Kailai
On November 15, 2011, British businessman Neil Heywood was found dead in his room at a Chongqing hotel. Chinese authorities ruled it alcohol poisoning, cremated the body without an autopsy, and closed the file. It was, by every official measure, an unremarkable death. What the world did not yet know was this: November 15 is also the birthday of Gu Kailai, the wife of one of the most powerful politicians in China, a woman who had spent her life accumulating credentials, connections, and carefully constructed respectability. She had lured Heywood to that hotel. She had watched her aide carry his incapacitated body to the bed. And she had poured potassium cyanide into his mouth herself. The case that unraveled in the following months would expose a world of princeling privilege, illicit fortunes, cover-ups at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party, and a murder so brazen that it triggered the largest political crisis in China since Tiananmen Square. This is the story of Gu Kailai: lawyer, author, power broker, and killer.
Accused: Zheng Yi Sao
Zheng Yi Sao, also known as Shi Yang, Shi Xianggu, Shek Yeung and Ching Shih, was a notorious Chinese pirate leader who wreaked havoc in the South China Sea from 1801 to 1810. Commanding hundreds of ships and thousands of men, she was responsible for countless acts of piracy, including theft, murder, and kidnapping. Despite her notorious criminal activities, she was never officially convicted.
Convicted: Jiang Qing
Jiang Qing, also known as Madame Mao, was a key figure in the Chinese communist revolution and the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party and Paramount leader of China. She played a significant role in the Cultural Revolution, leading the radical Gang of Four. In the aftermath of Mao's death and the end of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang was arrested and convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes during the Gang of Four trial. She was held mainly responsible for the chaotic and violent period of the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in widespread human rights abuses and millions of deaths.
