Teenager executed in 1996 found innocent
Print Edition
A TEENAGER sentenced to death and executed in a controversial 1996 rape and murder case was yesterday declared innocent.
Zhao Jianping, deputy chief judge of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regional Higher People’s Court, bowed low before the parents of Huugjilt as he presented the court order to them at their home, Xinhua news agency reported.
The couple, unwavering in their belief in their son’s innocence, had been fighting to clear their son’s name for years ever since another man admitted he was the culprit.
Shang Aiyun, 62, whose son was 18 at the time, went to his grave with her husband Li Sanren to burn a copy of the court order to “comfort his spirit” that has been suffering from the pain of a wrongful charge.
On May 23, 1996, Huugjilt was found guilty of raping and murdering a woman in Hohhot, 44 days after he and a colleague had found her body in a public toilet. He was executed on June 10 that year.
Doubts were cast on the verdict after the arrest of serial killer Zhao Zhihong in 2005. Zhao admitted to 19 murders, including the woman in Hohhot.
Huugjilt’s parents began to campaign for their son’s innocence in 2006 and on November 19 this year, the Inner Mongolia court reopened the case and an investigation was launched into police officials involved in the events leading to the teenager’s conviction. His parents believed he had been tortured to confess to the killing.
The case came amid a sweeping national campaign to strike hard against criminal activities, when public security, procuratorial organs and courts were encouraged to take swift and severe measures in dealing with criminal cases.
Official figures suggest that in 1995 alone, public security departments nationwide handled 1.5 million criminal cases, many involving the guns, drugs and organized crime.
“The crackdown played a big role in maintaining social stability in the time of economic and social transformation from a planned economy to a market-oriented economy, but the legal departments’ work had serious flaws,” Ai Guoping, a lawyer from Hohhot, told Xinhua.
Detectives working in the Hohhot public security bureau at the time admitted that during the campaign their work performance was rated by an annual quota of how many criminal cases they solved. They were “eager to wind up a case, and the use of illegal punishment and inducement on suspects existed in case investigations,” police told Xinhua.
Against this background, , the swift resolution of Huugjilt’s case was approved by the higher court despite the fact that evidence in the case was “questionable or inadequate,” according to the retrial.
At a press conference yesterday, Li Shengchen, a spokesman for the higher court, said an investigation into violations in the original case was ongoing.
He said “the original verdict had been arrived without definite proof or sufficient evidence.”
Zhao Zhihong is still in prison awaiting trial.
Last Friday, the Supreme People’s Court ordered a review in a similar case.
Nie Shubin was just 21 when he was convicted and executed in 1995 for rape and murder in north China’s Hebei Province.
Like Huugjilt’s case, another man, Wang Shujin who was caught in 2005, confessed that he was the killer, not Nie.
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