9 July 2019
A corruption watchdog in northern China has revealed that a former prison warden and 15 other officials allowed inmates to dig an escape tunnel, which allowed prisoners to freely come and go from the jail.
The tunnel was constructed under the direction of Xi Guijun, who was serving an 11-year term for robbery.
Xi had been transferred to the jail in 2003. After a year into his sentence, he received favourable treatment from the warden and other officials, the Inner Mongolia Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement on Sunday.
Two years later, Xi was involved in a fatal car accident during one of his escapes, and less than two months later an assault in which a man was seriously injured at an entertainment venue, the watchdog said, without elaborating.
But his jail term was reduced soon after, and he was released from prison in 2007.  The warden, Zhao Qinglin was expelled from the Communist Party for his part in the scandal, while the others – including his deputy Li Luhan and Wang Fengzhou, who was the jail’s party secretary – had been demoted or removed from their posts.
South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.