HOHHOT, Jan. 5  -- The trial of an alleged serial killer began Monday in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The case has been reopened more than eight years after his first trial.

Zhao Zhihong stands accused of murder, rape, robbery and larceny, the Hohhot Intermediate People's Court said.

Zhao was apprehended in 2005 and confessed to 17 rape and murder cases, including one in a public toilet in Hohhot in 1996.

The Hohhot case made headline recently, as a higher court ruled in December 2014 that teenager Huugjilt, who was sentenced to death and executed for the crime, was innocent.

Zhao first stood trial in late 2006 for the rape and murder of 10 women and girls between 1996 and 2005. No verdict has yet been issued.