The World - News from Aug. 8, 1985

Twenty-four ranking Chinese Communist Party officials have been dismissed from their posts and expelled from the party for failing to report that their sons were members of gangs that committed a series of rapes. The youths were convicted of crimes in the city of Beian in northern Heilongjiang province. They were members of three gangs, totaling more than 60 people, that committed 139 rapes there between 1979 and 1984. Of those convicted, five were sentenced to death.