ZHENGZHOU, CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- A former ruling party official was executed in central China on Tuesday for raping nearly a dozen young girls, state-run media reported on Wednesday. The case had sparked widespread public outrage when his arrest was announced last year.

Li Xingong, the former deputy director of ruling Communist Party committee in Yongcheng city of Henan province, was executed on Tuesday at an undisclosed location. The state-run Xinhua news agency, citing court sources, said the execution had been approved by the Supreme People's Court.

Li was arrested in May 2012 and charged with raping eleven adolescent girls between the second half of 2011 and the first half of 2012. He was later convicted by the Shangqiu City Intermediate People's Court, which sentenced him to death and deprived him of political rights for life.

The ruling party official appealed his sentence, but the court rejected his appeal. Xinhua previously reported that an unidentified woman had also been arrested in connection with the rapes, as police accused her of helping Li pick up, seduce and sexually assault the school girls. It is unclear if she was convicted.

The news of Li's arrest last year sparked widespread public outrage on the Twitter-like social networking website Sina Weibo. Some users criticized the ruling party for failing to choose good officials, and the execution comes amid reports of corruption and abuse of power in the Communist Party.

It is unknown how many people are executed in China each year as the government considers these figures to be a state secret. Only some executions are reported by state-run media, but few details are usually released. Amnesty International believes the annual number of executions is in the thousands.

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Can't accuse the Chinese of being soft on crime.