Retrial verdict for 1996 murder case to be announced Monday

File photo of Hugjiltu. (Photo: Chinadaily.com.cn)

A lawyer representing a 1996 rape and murder case said Saturday that a process will be initiated to ask for State compensation and find out who is to blame once his client is exonerated Monday.

The higher court in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region said Saturday that the retrial verdict of the case will be announced Monday.

The court released the statement through its Sina Weibo account.

The presiding judge with the Inner Mongolia Higher People's Court, Bobatu, issued a retrial on Nov 20 in absentia notice to the parents of Hugjiltu, who had been found guilty of raping and murdering a woman in a public toilet in Hohhot on April 9, 1996.

Hugjiltu, who was 18 at the time, was sentenced to death and executed in June 1996.

However, since his execution, another alleged serial rapist and killer, Zhao Zhihong, confessed to the murder after he was arrested in 2005.

The court will hold a press conference Monday to announce the verdict, the statement said.

"I am sure that the case was wrongly judged," said Miao Li, the lawyer representing Hugjiltu's family. She said by reviewing files she found no evidence supporting that Hugjiltu raped and murdered the woman. "According to the principle of presumption of innocence, the exoneration is not out of question."

She added that if the man was announced innocent the family would initiate the process immediately, to find out the policemen, prosecutors and judges who are to blame for the wrongly executed case, as well as asking for State compensation according to the State Compensation Law.