BEIJING: A Hohhot court in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Tuesday carried out a death penalty for a serial killer whose crime already served as the reason for another death sentence several years ago, local prosecution said.
Zhao Zhihong, who has been found guilty of committing nearly two dozen rapes and murders from 1996 to 2005, was sentenced to death in February 2015. His crimes also include a murder, for which an innocent man, the first to report to the police about the victim, was executed in 1996. The innocent man was posthumously exonerated in December 2014. The Chinese authorities delivered an official apology to his parents and paid them $330,000 in compensation.
Zhao refused to meet his relatives before his execution, the prosecutor's office said.
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China remains the world's leading country practicing death penalties with thousands executed in the country each year. International human rights groups have repeatedly urged Beijing to abolish capital punishment on grounds that death-penalty processes are inhumane and prone to error.