Zhao Liping

Zhao Liping (; August 1951 – 26 May 2017) was a Chinese police chief and politician who spent most of his career in Inner Mongolia. He served successively as the head of the region's Public Security Department, Vice-chairman of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and vice-chairman of the regional political advisory body. Zhao was also a writer. He was arrested by police in the eastern Inner Mongolian city of Chifeng in March 2015 on charges of intentional homicide. He was the first known provincial-level official to be convicted of murder in the history of the People's Republic of China.

During the Cultural Revolution, he was a sent-down youth performing manual labor in Horqin Left Middle Banner, Jilin province.

He worked for the police force and over 40 years worked his way up to head the Public Security Department of Inner Mongolia, essentially the region's police chief. During his term as police chief, he instituted programs to speed up response times to emergency calls, and vowed to shorten wait times to "30 seconds within the city, one minute in the suburbs, and as fast a possible in the rural regions."

In July 2012 he was appointed the vice-chairman of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a mostly ceremonial position he held until January 2013, when he retired. When he departed his position as regional police chief, he was given a standing ovation from his police colleagues that lasted several minutes.

Murder investigation On March 20, 2015, at approximately 9:30 pm in the city of Chifeng, Zhao was driving a black Audi sedan with Ordos license plates pursuing a white vehicle with a woman inside. The woman, surnamed Li, was born in 1988 and was 27 years old at the time of the incident, and reportedly had "intimate relations" with Zhao. The woman had called the emergency police number 110 that day, saying "Zhao Liping is out to kill me," before hanging up abruptly. Zhao was said to have caught up with the woman inside the Baihe Xincheng residential neighbourhood of Chifeng and shot the woman in the head, killing her, Zhao did not resist arrest and reportedly still carried blood stains at the time of his arrest. Zhao was the 100th high-ranking "tiger" (officials of sub-provincial level and above) being investigated or charged with a crime since the anti-corruption campaign in China began in 2012, though initially he was not being investigated for corruption, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) took up his case as a separate investigation from the murder charge.

A former subordinate of Zhao said about his crimes, "he was a great guy, not arrogant at all. He was calm, truthful, self-assured. It perplexes me what made him do such a stupid thing."

Zhao pleaded not guilty. On November 11, 2016, Zhao was convicted on charges of intentional homicide, taking bribes, abuse of power, and illegal possession of firearms, and sentenced by the Taiyuan Intermediate People's Court to death. Zhao appealed the decision. The Shanxi People's High Court rejected the appeal and upheld the sentence, which was reviewed by the Supreme People's Court. Zhao was the first official of sub-provincial level or above to be sentenced to death since Xi Jinping took power of the CCP general secretary in 2012. He was executed on May 26, 2017.