Chinese court declares 'killer-kidnappers' innocent - 17 years too late
Court overturns sentences of three men convicted of kidnapping and murdering boy almost 20 years ago, but decision is too late for one man
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 30 May, 2015, 1:23am
UPDATED : Saturday, 30 May, 2015, 1:23am
Li Jing [email protected]
The top mainland prosecutor has urged judicial bodies to prevent wrongful convictions. Photo: SCMP Pictures
A court in Fujian province on Friday overturned the suspended death penalties and a life sentence handed to three people almost 20 years after they were wrongly convicted of kidnapping and killing a teenage boy.
Chen Xiaying, 36, who was serving life in jail, and Huang Xing, 40, who was under a suspended death sentence, were allowed to return to their hometown in Fuqing, news portal The Paper reported.
A third man, Lin Lifeng, who was also given a suspended death penalty, died of cancer in prison in 2008.
The trio were convicted of kidnapping 13-year-old Tang Ming in 1996.
The boy's parents had found a note at home demanding a 70,000 yuan (HK$89,000) ransom after their child went missing in April that year.
But the kidnappers never showed up, and the boy's body was found near a primary school the following month.
Police arrested Chen, Huang and Lin, all impoverished drug addicts, in June, and the local media hyped up their detention, proclaiming the trio as the murderers even before trial began.
But records showed the three were not in contact when Tang was missing.
Chen and Huang said they were in Shenzhen at the time, while Lin said he was at home with his cousins that night.
According to The Paper, police did not include the alibis in the trio's case records, and their relatives were harassed into testifying against them.
They were sentenced in a Fuzhou intermediate court in 1998, and the Fujian Higher People's Court upheld the sentences in 2006 despite a lack of substantial evidence. The higher court reopened the case in February after repeated petitions from the families of the men.
Chen and Huang told a court this month that police tortured them for five days into making their confessions, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.
News outlet Caixin quoted their lawyer, Wang Xing, as saying there was no proof the three men committed the crimes.
"The procuratorate realised there were problems. The court knew there were problems, but they were not able to exercise judicial power independently," Wang said.
Top mainland prosecutor Cao Jianming has urged judicial bodies to prevent wrongful convictions, calling it the legal supervisory body's biggest task.
