A Chinese court on Monday suspended the death sentence of Gu Kailai, the wife of a disgraced Communist Party leader, after finding her guilty of murder in the death of a British businessman, a court official said.

Gu’s death penalty has been suspended for two years due to her weakened mental capacity while committing the crime and her close cooperation with police during the investigation, according to Tang Yigan, deputy chief of Hefei Intermediate People’s Court.

“I think this verdict is fair. It fully reflects the court’s respect for law, reality and especially human life,” Gu said in video from Monday’s court session shown on state-run CCTV.

Her sentence is likely be commuted to life imprisonment, if she doesn’t commit any crimes during the two-year reprieve, as is customary in the Chinese legal system. Her punishment could be even further reduced for good behavior.

She was jailed immediately following the verdict.

Four police officers also were convicted of covering up the murder and received prison sentences ranging from five to eleven years, Tang said.

Gu and a former household aide went on trial August 9 on charges of poisoning 41-year-old Neil Heywood.

Murder trial at heart of Chinese political scandal

Near the end of that day’s court proceedings, she said according to state-run news agency Xinhua that she “accepted all the facts written in the indictment” — including poisoning the Brit at a time when she thought her son’s life was in danger.

At the time of Heywood’s death last November, Gu’s husband Bo Xilai was the head of the Communist party in the bustling southwestern city of Chongqing and an influential and controversial member of the Communist Party’s politburo, the elite group of 25 men who run China. He is now awaiting his own fate after being stripped of his political office earlier this year due to an unspecified “serious breach of party regulations.’

Gu’s aide, Zhang Xiaojun, also was found guilty Monday in Heywood’s death and sentenced to nine years in prison, Tang said.

The British Embassy in Beijing welcomed the Chinese investigation and the verdict.

“We consistently made clear to the Chinese authorities that we wanted to see the trials in this case conform to international human rights standards and for the death penalty not to be applied,” said John Gallagher, an embassy spokesman.

“Our thoughts are with Mr. Heywood’s family during this distressing time. Consular officials have attended the trial to fulfill our consular responsibilities to the family and our focus remains on offering them all the support we can.”

Neither Gu nor Zhang will appeal their verdicts, according to the court.

The verdicts were announced at the Hefei Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern Chinese city where the trial occurred but about 1,250 kilometers (775 miles) east of the scene of the crime. The guilty verdicts were widely expected, as a U.S. State Department report noted — citing the Chinese Supreme People’s Court — that Chinese prosecutors had a 99.9% conviction rate in 2010 in that nation’s first and second levels of criminal courts.

Chinese authorities had previously said that Gu and her son had “conflicts” with Heywood “over economic interests” and that she was motivated to kill the Briton because of fears for the safety of her son, Bo Guagua. Bo declined to comment on his mother’s confession or “any details pertaining to the case.” However, the day before the trial he told CNN he’d submitted a witness statement to her defense team.

– CNN