By Li Rongde From CaixinOnline

Inner Mongolia High People’s Court delivers 30,000 yuan in condolence money to family on reversal of ruling for which teen received death penalty

(Beijing) – Nearly two decades after his execution, a court declared a man named Qoysiletu wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of a woman in a public toilet in Hohhot, said the Inner Mongolia High People’s Court on December 15.

Parents of Qoysiletu, who was executed in June 1996, were notified of the ruling which found him not guilty and Zhao Jianping, vice president of the Inner Mongolia High People’s Court, extended an apology to the family over the egregious mistakes made by law enforcement leading to the young man’s execution.

Zhao also delivered 30,000 yuan in “condolence money” to the family on behalf of Hu Yifeng, president of the high court, and promised further compensation.

As previously reported, Qoysiletu, then 18, was convicted on May 23, 1996, for raping and killing a woman inside a toilet at a textile plant in Hohhot.

The gruesome killing, which came amid a nationwide strike-hard campaign against felony crimes, piled pressure on local law enforcement authorities to speed up the investigation and subsequent trials as a result of the broad attention it drew at the time.

According to court transcripts, police were able to extract a confession within 48 hours of interrogation, which became the basis of his conviction.

Qoysiletu, known also as Hugjiltu, insisted he was innocent, but was executed on June 10, 62 days after the murder.

Doubts were raised in the guilt of Qoysiletu after evidence from his purported confession was compared to the results of a post-mortem autopsy of the victim.

The controversial sentencing was again brought under intense public scrutiny nine years later when police captured Zhao Zhihong, a serial rapist and murderer who confessed to several rapes and murders, including the 1996 toilet stall rape-murder in Hohhot.

Zhao provided an accurate description of the site of the textile factory killing and also the victim.

Qoysiletu’s parents had petitioned to varied authorities and media outlets over perceived injustice in his conviction to no avail until last year when Inner Mongolia’s High Court completed a review of Qoysiletu’s case and concluded it had been mishandled.

The case was later referred to Inner Mongolia’s party committee and the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, which led to a decision late last month by the region’s high court to reopen the case.

During a news briefing over the recent verdict for Qoysiletu on December 15, the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region High People’s Court said that they are looking into possible dereliction of duty in the case to hold law enforcement officials to account.

He Feng, the former deputy director of Hohhot’s security bureau, was in charge of investigating the case of the serial killer, said earlier the reason Qoysiletu’s case was not reopened sooner was partly on resistance from people involved in the initial investigation.

Miao Li, a legal representative for the relatives of Qoysiletu, said that the family will continue to press for compensation from the government for the trauma they have endured over the years.

For more on this story go to: http://english.caixin.com/2014-12-15/100763290.html