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December 27, 2014

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Death-row prisoner declared innocent in call to punish police

A PRISONER on death-row who was later declared innocent told prosecutors yesterday that two police officers had tortured him to make him confess and fabricated evidence that led to his conviction for the murder of two children in southeast China in 2006.

Nian Bin, 38, who walked free from court in August, also told the Fujian Provincial Procuratorate that You Jingfei and Weng Qifeng, then officers at the Pingtan County Public Security Bureau, had threatened to arrest his wife.

Nian also asked prosecutors to investigate another five officials with the police bureau of the provincial capital of Fuzhou who he said had helped secure his wrongful conviction.

On Thursday, Nian called on an intermediate court in Fuzhou, which had sentenced him to death in February 2008, to pay him 15 million yuan (US$2.4 million) compensation for depriving him of his freedom and for medical treatment for mental and physical conditions that included insomnia, a heart disorder and prostate and spinal problems.

He also asked the court to publish an apology in major Chinese newspapers including the People’s Daily and the Oriental Morning Post as well as major news portals sina.com and xinhuanet.com.cn, according to the Legal Evening News.

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 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.

Police said traces of the poison had been found at his home.

In a submission to the procuratorate, Nian said the two officers had concealed evidence that would have pointed to his innocence and faked reports about the poison to make him appear guilty.

In his submission, Nian wrote: “The policemen should be punished to avoid such a case of injustice happening to others.”

The higher court which overturned the guilty verdict in August said the prosecution had presented conflicting evidence, there was a lack of proof the victims had died from rat poison and there had been a failure to trace the origin of the poison.

China has seen several cases this year where convictions have been reversed.

A teenager named Huugjilt from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was found guilty of rape and murder in the regional capital Hohhot on April 9, 1996, and executed in June 1996.

Zhao Zhihong, who confessed to the murder when he was arrested in 2005, is awaiting trial. Huugjilt was declared innocent on December 15.

In a similar case, the Higher People’s Court of east China’s Shandong Province said judges are reviewing a rape-murder case 19 years after a man was executed, after another man said he was guilty. Nie Shubin was 21 when he was executed in 1995 for the 1994 rape and murder of a woman in Shijiazhuang, capital of Shandong’s neighboring province of Hebei.

In February, a man in central China’s Henan Province was released on bail after 10 years in detention. Yang Botao was held on suspicion of rape and murder in 2001.

“They kept me in a hotel room for 17 days. I was tortured, so that I had hallucinations. I felt like my soul was flying to another place,” 37-year-old Yang said.

China’s Supreme Court will study these miscarriage of justices to identify problems and weaknesses in criminal trial procedure and establish a reliable way to avoid such cases from happening again, Shen Deyong, the court’s executive vice president, has said.




 

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