AKIPRESS.COM - Twenty-seven officials in China have been "penalized" for the wrongful execution of a teenager 20 years ago, Channel News Asia reported.
Hugjiltu was 18 in 1996 when he was sentenced and put to death for the rape and murder of a woman in the toilet of a textile factory in Hohhot in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
In 2014, Hugjiltu was finally exonerated after another man, Zhao Zhihong, confessed to the crime and was in turn convicted and sentenced to death.
"One of the blacklisted officials responsible for the wrongful conviction of Huugjiltu, Feng Zhiming, was suspected of job-related crimes and was subject to further investigation," authorities said in a statement.
Feng, a former deputy chief with the public security bureau in Hohhot, could face prosecution.
The other 26 – among them police officers and court officials – "received administrative penalties including admonitions and record of demerit."