Chinese prison official sacked over Wuhan coronavirus ‘escapee’
- Investigators blame a series of departments for allowing a released inmate to break through the lockdown and get to the capital
- Four other units in Beijing – including the Beijing CDC and the highway management authority – had been reprimanded
Top prison officials in central China have been sacked after a former inmate infected with the coronavirus was able to leave the locked-down city of Wuhan and reach Beijing last month.
“This was a serious incident caused by officials breaching their duty ... resulting in a terrible impact and posing enormous risk to the virus-control efforts in the capital,” a joint investigation team led by the Ministry of Justice said in a report published in Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily on Monday.
Investigators from various central government ministries were sent to Wuhan in Hubei province last week to determine how the former inmate, a woman who had been released from a prison in the epicentre of the crisis, made it to the national capital.
The case compounded doubts about the authorities’ ability to handle the crisis after revelations that many people within the prison system in the province had contracted the virus.
As of February 23, 323 inmates had been diagnosed with the coronavirus, including 297 from Wuhan Women’s Prison.
“The root of this incident lies with the Hubei Department of Justice and provincial prison administration,” the investigators were quoted as saying.
Huang repeatedly requested to leave Wuhan so a Wuhan police officer contacted Huang’s daughter in Beijing to make arrangements to go to the capital.
On February 19, another relative called a hotline operated by the Beijing Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), asking if they could bring people out from Wuhan to Beijing.
The relative was reportedly told that “as long as you can get out from Wuhan through the expressway, Beijing is not limiting incoming traffic”, Xiao Sa, an official from Beijing’s Commission for Discipline Inspection said on Monday afternoon.
Huang was picked up by her family at a highway toll station in Wuhan on February 21 and the next day, after arriving in Beijing, Huang’s relative informed local authorities about Huang’s arrival from Wuhan.
Local authorities were alerted and Huang was asked to go into quarantine. She was diagnosed with the coronavirus on February 24 and is receiving medical treatment.
The investigation team said Hao Aimin, party secretary of the provincial prison administration, had been sacked along with the administration’s deputy chief and political chief.
Four other units in Beijing – including the Beijing CDC and the highway management authority – had been reprimanded.
Beijing’s public security bureau was investigating whether the incident involved other breaches or crimes.
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