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.