HAIKOU - Police finally arrested a fugitive, 28 years after he was accused of "hooliganism", only to find that he had married his victim after the incident.

After searching for the man for nearly three decades and driving 1,100 kilometers in a heavy typhoon, police officers from South China's Hainan province eventually arrested the man on Oct 3.

The fugitive, Chen Zonghao, was wanted on a charge of hooliganism for hugging a woman against her will in the 1980s.

Earlier reports said Chen escaped to his hometown in nearby Guangdong province, after he hugged his colleague without her consent and the woman's parents reported the incident to the police.

Hooliganism is a charge that no longer exists. It was deleted from the Criminal Law when the law was revised in 1997, but in the 1980s a conviction for hooliganism could result in a death sentence. After China toughened the measures against immoral behavior, such as gang fighting, picking quarrels and vandalism, in a 1980s crackdown campaign on serious crimes, the judicial authorities were required to hand out swift and harsh penalties.

"Although the charge doesn't exist now, the police still had a responsibility to arrest the criminal and close the case," a police media officer in Hainan told China Daily on condition of anonymity.

"But we have to consider the special circumstances, since the victim has married her assailant and said she doesn't want her husband to go to prison," he said.

The woman went to Guangdong to search for Chen and in the end married him one year after the incident. The couple now have two sons and a daughter and run a wholesale store in Guangdong.

A police officer told Hainan-based South China Metropolitan Daily they are trying to explain the special circumstances of the case to local prosecutors, and hope the procuratorate will withdraw the lawsuit.

The case was among the successful examples of an ongoing national campaign to clear cold cases, according to the paper.

In a previous case, Niu Yuqiang, a "hooligan" in Beijing was given a death sentence with a reprieve in 1984 for snatching a hat, smashing a window and fighting with another man.

Niu's lawyer, Zhou Ze, said Niu was still in prison in Xinjiang and will not be released until 2020.

"The country should give amnesty to those who serve a sentence for a charge that doesn't even exist now," he said.