Court orders retrial of official's rape case

A court in southwest China's Yunnan Province has been ordered to retry a case in which an official was sentenced to five years in prison for raping a four-year-old girl -- a sentence deemed too lenient by the public.

Prosecutors appealed to the Zhaotong City Intermediate People's Court on Monday against the ruling, saying the sentence was clearly inappropriate.

Zhaotong City Intermediate People's Court on Thursday ordered the Daguan County People's Court to retry the case.

The date of the retrial is not yet known.

On Sept. 24, the court in Daguan County found Guo Yuchi, an official who managed government staff sizing, guilty of raping a four-year-old girl.

Guo was sentenced to five years in jail without bearing civil compensation liabilities, according to the county court ruling.