Huugjilt

Huugjilt (21 September 1977 – 10 June 1996), also spelled Hugjiltu, was a Chinese Mongol man who was wrongfully executed on 10 June 1996 for the rape and murder of a woman. On 5 December 2006, ten years after the execution, Zhao Zhihong wrote the Petition of My Death Penalty, admitting he had committed the crime. Huugjilt was posthumously exonerated, and Zhao Zhihong was sentenced to death in 2015. Xinhua stated that the case was "one of the most notorious cases of judicial injustice in China in the recent decade."

Huugjilt, an ethnic Mongol, had only a single name.

Background The Second Strike Hard Against Crime Campaign was initiated by Jiang Zemin, the new Chinese president who had been groomed by former state leader Deng Xiaoping. The Huugjilt case is one of the many wrongful convictions it has caused.

Crime A woman surnamed Yang was raped and murdered inside a public toilet Huugjilt had discovered the body and alerted authorities, but he was arrested and accused of committing the crime. In an opinion article about the case, the China Daily stated, "It has not been rare for higher authorities to exert pressure on local public security departments and judiciary to crack serious murder cases. Nor has it been rare for the police to extort confessions through torture. And suspects have been sentenced without solid evidence except for extorted confessions."

Huugjilt was held for 61 days. on 10 June of that year; On 5 December 2006, while still serving his sentence at the Hohhot No. 1 Detention Center, Zhao Zhihong confessed to killing Yang.