Serial killer charged with murder that led to teenager’s execution
Print Edition
A SERIAL killer was charged with a 10th murder yesterday, one day after a teenager executed 18 years ago was declared innocent of the crime.
Zhao Zhihong had been caught by police in Hohhot, capital of north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, in October 2005 and charged with 21 cases of murder, rape and theft between 1996 and 2005, Xinhua news agency reported.
He admitted to nine murders but also claimed responsibility for a 10th, one that had led to the execution of 18-year-old Huugjilt in 1996.
However, at Zhao’s trial in 2006, prosecutors failed to mention the 10th murder, an official who was in court told yesterday’s Legal Evening News.
Zhao had asked the court: “It was the first crime that I committed. Why didn’t prosecutors mention it?” But the presiding judge “hinted” that Zhao should stop talking, the paper reported.
Zhao was sentenced to death on the nine murder charges. But his insistence he was guilty of a 10th alerted the central government and the regional higher court suspended appeal proceedings, said Hua Lijia, a former prosecutor in Hohhot.
Zhao has been in detention awaiting trial since then. He continued to insist he was guilty of the 10th murder and even wrote to the Supreme People’s Court, saying: “I hope to bear the blame for what I have done. I apply for a review for the case to return the fair name to the wrongly convicted and prove the justice of the law. Also, I want to face my doomed day without any regret.”
Yesterday, the Inner Mongolia Higher People’s Court said Hohhot prosecutors had added the 10th murder to the list of charges against Zhao.
Meanwhile, the Inner Mongolia People’s Procuratorate has begun an investigation into the police involved in the case which led to the Huugjilt’s execution.
On Monday, Zhao Jianping, a deputy chief judge at the higher people’s court, had presented Huugjilt’s parents with legal papers declaring his innocence.
On May 23, 1996, Huugjilt was found guilty of rape and murder and he was executed on June 10.
The case was reopened after Zhao’s confession.
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