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September 20, 2014

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Man released 16 years after false conviction

AFTER 16 years in prison for rape and murder, Xu Hui finally got his conviction reversed. “I believed one day I could walk out of this place as an innocent man,” the 56-year-old man from Zhuhai, southern China’s Guangdong Province, told the Southern Metropolis Daily after receiving the verdict that set him free on Monday. He didn’t sleep for the following 33 hours.

Xu’s saga began on August 25, 1998, when villager Wu Qunyou walked out his home to collect a gas cylinder and saw the body of a woman lying naked on the street in Xiaolin, Hongqi Town. He immediately called the police.

The victim was 19-year-old Yan Chanjuan, widely considered “Ms Xiaolin.” The crime scene was only 30 meters from her home.

When the police arrived, Xu, who lived next door to Yan, came out to look around. He was then deputy director of the service station in Xiaolin for 18 years. The first floor was the office while he and his wife and daughter lived on the second floor.

Xu, among many other people nearby, was questioned by the police. He later became a suspect because one witness surnamed Liang said that one time when Xu and four or five people were chatting, a resident by the last name Wu came over and said “Xu Hui, now you are the prime suspect,” perhaps in a joking tone.

That apparently was enough to spur police to take another look. Xu’s wife, Huang Meiying, also became extremely suspicious after she was questioned by the police. A few days after the incident, she told police, she talked to Xu and asked why the murderer left the body on the street instead of disposing of it on the mountain. And she wondered aloud if it was left there for her parents to see, perhaps to send them a message.

Huang also said to Xu that “if it’s you who killed her, then we would lose the pillar of the family, even if the police let you go, the victim’s family wouldn’t.”

Xu reportedly said nothing upon hearing this.

At 9pm on September 17, more than 20 policemen came to Xu’s home and arrested him and had Huang sign the arrest and search warrants.

Shortly after Xu was taken into custody, the local media in Zhuhai ran a story, saying that the rape and homicide case was solved, which was a relief to everyone in Xiaolin.

When Yan’s body was found, there were obvious drag marks and several blur footprints nearby. About 10 meters away was a small abandoned house that was confirmed as the first crime scene. The police found a white woven bag that had bloodstain.

But none of this physical evidence was linked to Xu. The medical examiner concluded that the victim was raped, hit by a blunt instrument in the head and the cause of death was strangulation.

Police, under tremendous pressure to solve the case, concluded that at midnight of August 25, Xu saw Yan walking out of her home alone as he was collecting clothes on his balcony. Xu’s wife was not in the house because she had gone to her hometown in Nanshui to see the doctor. His daughter was asleep.

Xu followed Yan and picked up a brick to hit her head, rendering her unconscious before dragging her to the small house and raping her, the police said. When Yan woke up, Xu killed her by using electric wire to suffocate her, they concluded.

Without direct physical evidence, Xu was convicted on circumstantial evidence and given a death sentence with a 2-year reprieve. He also was ordered to pay more than 72,500 yuan in compensation to Yan’s family on May 9, 2001.

Xu’s lawyer, Hou Yantao, who has been defending Xu for the past 16 years, said cases like this usually end up with death sentences, but Xu was not executed because there were so many doubts.

“I didn’t kill the woman and I certainly won’t plead guilty,” Xu remembered saying when he was taken away by the police.

Xu appealed to the provincial high court, which upheld the ruling on December 3, 2001. He appealed again and lost on November 11, 2005.

Hou suggested appealing to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. On June 16, 2008, the provincial-level procuratorate ruled that the case must be reopened, saying the evidence was insufficient.

The criminal verdict was revoked a month later while Xu stayed in custody, not as a convict, but as a suspect. The panel formed by Zhuhai Intermediate People’s Court reopened the trial on August 10, 2012 in Kuntun Prison in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Two years later the verdict came through and Xu was found not guilty.

The victim’s family told the Southern Metropolis Daily they didn’t want to accept the fact that Xu walked free and that the real killer is still at large.

The court declared Xu not guilty based on the principle “innocent until proved guilty.” Unlike some previous cases in China, the verdict was reversed not because of finding the real killer or the victims coming back alive but simply for lack of evidence.

Xu will be compensated according to the law for the 16 years in prison. In addition to the 200.69-yuan-per-day compensation based on average wage, he will also receive emotional damage compensation.




 

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