Member of China's Gang of Four Yao Wenyuan dies

Yao Wenyuan, member of the Gang of Four in China's 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, has died. He was 74.

Yao died of diabetes on Dec. 23, 2005. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment by a special tribunal of China's Supreme People's Court in January 1981, with political rights deprived for five years. He was released from prison in October 1996 after serving full jail term.

Yao was the last member of the Gang of Four which refers to Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qing, Yao Wenyuan, and one of the chief culprits of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Anti-Revolution Clique.

The youngest gang member, Wang Hongwen, died of liver cancer in a Beijing hospital in 1992 while serving a life sentence.

Zhang Chunqiao died of cancer on April 21, 2005, at age of 88. He was given death sentence with a two-year reprieval by a special tribunal of the Supreme People's Court in January 1981, and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with political rights deprived for life in January 1983, and was commuted again to 18 years in prison with political rights deprived for 10 years.

Jiang Qing was sentenced in 1981 to death with two-year reprieval. But the verdict later commuted to life in prison. Ten years later she hanged herself while on medical parole.

Source: Xinhua