The Higher People's Court (HPC) in East China's Zhejiang Province Monday handed businesswoman Wu Ying a death penalty with a two-year reprieve for fundraising fraud after retrial.

The court also ordered that all Wu's personal property be confiscated, and stripped her of political rights for life in the final judgment.

This is after the Supreme People's Court decided to override the judgment of the Zhejiang HPC and send the case back for re-sentencing on April 20 after reviewing the death penalty upheld by the provincial court on January 18.

In December 2009, Wu, the then 28-year-old former owner of the Zhejiang-based Bense Holding Group, was sentenced to death by the Jinhua Intermediate People's Court in the province for cheating investors out of 380 million yuan ($60 million).

Wu raised 770 million yuan by promising investors high returns between 2005 and 2007, the Jinhua court found. She still had 380 million yuan as well as a large amount of unpaid debt when the case was uncovered.

The intermediate court said Wu amassed the fortune for illegal possession by fabricating facts and promising high returns as an incentive.

Wu's father Wu Yongzheng said he could not accept the sentence. "It was so dark," he wrote on his Weibo account.

HPC spokesman Tang Xuebing told the media afterwards that the final ruling without an open trial was in line with legal procedures, and Wu Ying had changed her lawyer of her own free will, and the allegation that local police had broken rules in disposing of Wu's remaining property was not true.