 Though staying in prison all the time, it was only on July 14, 1980 that Qi was officially arrested by the Beijing Police.On November 2, 1983 the Intermediate People's Court Beijing sentenced him to 18 years in prison on terms of being a member of the counterrevolutionary clique of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing as well as 'counterrevolutionary propaganda', 'wrong accusations' and 'inciting of the masses' ("da-za-qiang").Having by then already spent 15 years in prison, he was discharged after 3 more years in 1986.