diff --git a/RELEASE_NOTES.txt b/RELEASE_NOTES.txt
index 58e7c311f..82bb45264 100644
--- a/RELEASE_NOTES.txt
+++ b/RELEASE_NOTES.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,11 @@
 Changes in trunk
 -------------------
 
+* [HTTPCLIENT-1273] DecompressingHttpClient does not automatically consume response 
+  content in case of an i/o, HTTP or runtime exception thrown by the decompressing 
+  protocol interceptor leading to a potential connection leak. 
+  Contributed by Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk at apache.org>
+
 * [HTTPCLIENT-1080] NTLM dead code commented out.
   Contributed by Karl Wright <DaddyWri at gmail.com>  
 
diff --git a/httpclient/src/main/java/org/apache/http/impl/client/DecompressingHttpClient.java b/httpclient/src/main/java/org/apache/http/impl/client/DecompressingHttpClient.java
index f4a0350bf..a78c5c6cb 100644
--- a/httpclient/src/main/java/org/apache/http/impl/client/DecompressingHttpClient.java
+++ b/httpclient/src/main/java/org/apache/http/impl/client/DecompressingHttpClient.java
@@ -155,8 +155,24 @@ public HttpResponse execute(HttpHost target, HttpRequest request,
             }
             acceptEncodingInterceptor.process(wrapped, context);
             HttpResponse response = backend.execute(target, wrapped, context);
-            contentEncodingInterceptor.process(response, context);
-            return response;
+            try {
+                contentEncodingInterceptor.process(response, context);
+                if (Boolean.TRUE.equals(context.getAttribute(ResponseContentEncoding.UNCOMPRESSED))) {
+                    response.removeHeaders("Content-Length");
+                    response.removeHeaders("Content-Encoding");
+                    response.removeHeaders("Content-MD5");
+                }
+                return response;
+            } catch (HttpException ex) {
+                EntityUtils.consume(response.getEntity());
+                throw ex;
+            } catch (IOException ex) {
+                EntityUtils.consume(response.getEntity());
+                throw ex;
+            } catch (RuntimeException ex) {
+                EntityUtils.consume(response.getEntity());
+                throw ex;
+            }
         } catch (HttpException e) {
             throw new ClientProtocolException(e);
         }