China convicts man for rape and murder of woman 19 years after wrong person was executed

A Chinese man has been sentenced to death for committing a crime for which another person was previously executed.

Zhao Zhihong was charged with the murder of 10 people and the rape of 13 women by the Hohhot Intermediate People's Court in Inner Mongolia, AP reported.

The crimes occurred between April 1996 and July 2005 and included the case of a woman who was raped and killed in 1996 in a cotton mill toilet.

An 18-year-old cigarette factory worker called Huugjilt had discovered the body and reported it to police. He was later convicted for the crime and executed by a firing squad.

Zhao confessed to the 1996 crime in 2005, saying that the country had executed the wrong man. China, however, initially refused to reopen the case and tried Zhao only for nine murder cases.

Only in December 2014, the Hohhot court cleared Huugjilt of the charges and tried Zhao for the 10th murder.

Three days after Huugjilt's exoneration, state media announced that the police officer who had been in charge of his case was charged with torture to coerce confession, dereliction of duty and taking bribes, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

Huugjilt's parents received a state compensation of 2.06 million yuan (£220,097) for their son's death.