Bogu Kailai, the wife of former Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai, received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve for intentional homicide on Monday in a court in Hefei, Anhui Province.

She was found guilty of murdering British citizen Neil Heywood in November last year and was deprived of political rights for life, according to the court verdict announced by the Hefei City Intermediate People's Court.

Zhang Xiaojun, an accessory in the case, was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Expert testimony indicated that Bogu had the capacity to assume full criminal responsibility but was suffering from a mental disorder when she decided to kill Heywood.

The court heard that she made the decision after she learned the British businessman had used threatening language toward her son.

After she was arrested, Bogu provided the authorities with information regarding criminal activities by other parties, pleaded guilty and showed remorse for her crime, according to reports in Xinhua.

Taking these factors into account, the court decided to sentence Bogu to death with reprieve.

The British embassy released a statement commenting on the verdict on Monday saying that the efforts of Chinese authorities to investigate the death of Heywood and putting those they identified as responsible on trial was welcomed.

"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," the spokesperson for the British Embassy said in the statement, adding that representatives from the embassy attended the trial and focused on providing Heywood's family with all possible support.

Bogu confessed during the trial to the killing of 41-year-old Heywood by poisoning him in a hotel room with the help of Zhang in Chongqing.

Also on Monday, four police officials, including former deputy police chief of Chongqing Guo Weiguo, were respectively given jail terms ranging from five to 11 years for trying to cover up Bogu's murder.

No new information has been released in regard to Bo Xilai since authorities announced in April that he was being removed from the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau and the CPC Central Committee for "serious discipline violations," and that he was under disciplinary investigation.