The highest court in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region decided on Thursday to retry a controversial rape and murder case 18 years after the defendant was executed.

Li Shengchen, spokesman for the region's Higher People's Court, said a panel has been set up to retry the case based on files and other written materials.

Hugjiltu, 18, a member of the Mongolian ethnic group, was convicted of raping and choking a woman to death in a restroom at a textile factory in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, in April 1996.