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August 23, 2014

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Court says prosecution evidence ‘conflicted’

A DEATH-ROW inmate who spent six years appealing his conviction for the murder of two children in 2006 walked free from court yesterday after being found not guilty.

Nian Bin, 38, met his family in a tearful reunion, according to photos posted on social media by supporters and his lawyers.

Nian, who was sentenced to death three times since 2008, had repeatedly appealed the guilty verdict, saying he had been tortured into confessing to the crime.

Yesterday, in a final judgment on the case, the Higher People’s Court in southeast China’s Fujian Province said there was insufficient evidence to uphold a conviction.

The case dates back to July 2006, when Nian rented an apartment in Aoqian Village from Chen Yanjiao to open a grocery store. His next-door neighbor, Ding Yunxia, was also a grocery store owner.

On July 27, six people from Chen and Ding’s families suffered food poisoning, and Ding’s two children — 10-year-old Yu Pan and 8-year-old Yu Han — died.

Traces of rat poison were said to have been found in the children’s bodies and Nian was detained several days later after police said traces of the poison had also been found on a door handle at his home.

Police said Nian confessed on August 8, telling them he held a grudge because Ding had “stolen” one of his customers. He wanted to teach her a lesson, so had put rat poison in Ding’s water kettle.

In court, however, Nian said the confession had been extracted under torture.

He said the policemen who questioned him, You Jingfei and Weng Qifeng, had at first tried to persuade him to confess by saying he would only be sentenced to two or three years in jail at most.

 

Then they stabbed him in the ribs with a bamboo stick and beat him with a hammer.

“They put a book on me, and struck the hammer on the book,” he said. “It hurt very much.”

Weng said that if Nian didn’t confess, they would arrest his wife. In desperation, Nian tried to chew off his tongue to commit suicide.

In court, police were unable to provide a complete video of the interrogation.

In February 2008, the Fujian Province Intermediate Court sentenced Nian to death, but the higher court rejected the sentence due to lack of evidence. In April 2010 and November 2011, the intermediate court again handed down the death sentence. Both times the sentence was rejected by the higher court for the same reason.

In July last year, the higher court heard the case again with the chief judge saying a verdict would be issued later.

Nian’s legal team had invited toxicologists from Hong Kong and Beijing to give evidence.

In overturning the guilty verdict yesterday, the higher court said the prosecution had presented conflicting evidence, there was a lack of proof that the victims had died from rat poison and there had been a failure to adequately trace the origin of the poison.

Beijing-based legal scholar Xu Xin said the defense team had been able to prove that some evidence was false and concocted by police, The Associated Press reported.

“As far as we can tell, this is an isolated case, but we hope this will help China move forward — even with a small step — in building rule of law,” Xu said.

“We should thank his lawyers and their unrelenting efforts for the acquittal. The social media also have played a role, having put pressure on the court to hear the case fairly.”

Critics say pressure to solve homicide cases sometimes leads to wrongful convictions based on coerced confessions and fabricated evidence in China. Some wrongful convictions have been overturned only when victims, presumed dead, turned up alive.

Nian’s case attracted some of China’s most prominent lawyers and wide attention in social media put the local courts on the spot.

“It’s a case of life and death, and the higher court had little wriggle room when members of the public were watching closely,” said Shanghai-based legal scholar Zhang Xuezhong.

Zhang said it was troublesome that the lower court had convicted Nian two more times even after the higher court had cast doubt on the case.

The People’s Daily quoted Nian’s sister Nian Jianlan as saying: “We will ask that the torturers be held responsible. We will ask for compensation. Money is not enough to compensate for what we lost in these years, and I will never forgive them.”

She said the case was not over. “The family of the victims also wants justice. While they were interrogating my brother, they were letting the real murderer walk free.”

She added: “The two families have started a feud because of the case, and I understand Ding very much. But they are hating on the wrong people.”




 

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