A court in Inner Mongolia has on Monday charged and convicted a man for raping and killing a woman in 1996, but another man had already been executed for the same crime, accoring to Xinhua News Agency.

The Intermediate People's Court in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia has found Zhao Zhihong guilty of raping and killing a woman. For almost ten years, Zhao has been insisting that the man they executed was innocent.

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Due to this, the court has sentenced Zhao to death in a case considered as one of the highest-profile reversals in a Chinese court.

Back in April 1996, a man named Huugjilt, 18, called the police when he found a body of a woman at a textile factory. However, he was arrested and became the prime suspect in the case.

Huugjilt was interrogated for two days and confessed to the crime. He was executed via a firing squad in June 1996.

The case had already been closed but Zhao was arrested back in 2005 after confessing to police officials that he killed 10 people and insisted that he also raped and killed the woman in the textile factory. However, authorities did not want to reopen the case involving Huugjilt so he only underwent trials for the nine other murders.

The case has been reopened only recently as China has been drawing international attention for wrongful convictions. The case was reopened only last year and the murder convictions have been reversed.

Huugjilt's were given awarded two million renminbi (US$325,000) for the wrongful execution of their son. The court that had charged Huugjilt apologized to the family as well.

Zhao has then been charged with all 10 murders including other charges such as robbery, rape and theft. 

Tagswrongful execution, Zhao Zhihong, Rape, Murder, Huugjilt, textile factory