China’s top court overturned the conviction of a man charged with murder and rape, but the ruling came 21 years too late.
The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) exonerated Nie Shubin Friday, claiming that the conviction was based on unclear facts and insufficient evidence, reports Xinhua News Agency.
Nie, however, was executed at the age of 21 in 1995.
He was an employee at a hydraulic machinery plant on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province. In August 1994, Kang Juhua, a female worker at the plant, was found dead in a nearby cornfield. She had reportedly been raped and strangled, according to Sina News.
Nie was arrested and charged for both rape and murder. He was sentenced to death by the Hebei Provincial High People’s Court in March 1995.
Nie Xuesheng, the boy’s father, traveled to the prison in late April to bring his son clean clothes. The guards informed him that Nie had been executed the day before.
“We were not even given a last chance to see his body,” Nie’s father told reporters, “Most people at the police station had left for the holiday. We were directed to collect the ashes of my son, and to this day we are not sure whether they are his.”
Never able to accept the death of his son, Nie’s father attempted suicide twice, with one attempt leaving him partially paralyzed. “My son was a stutterer,” he said, “He never knew how to fight back even when bullied by other youngsters.”
Convinced that her son was innocent, Nie’s mother Zhang Huanzhi spent years pleading with courts to reopen her son’s case.
“I want them to take back the wrong accusation and return innocence to my son,” she explained, “The case didn’t have any witnesses or other confirmed evidence. They didn’t collect any hand prints, footprints or conduct a DNA test.”
The case resurfaced in 2005, when a man named Wang Shujin confessed to killing and raping nine different women, including Kang Juhua, indicating Nie was executed for a crime he did not commit.
Wang was given a death sentence for his crimes.
The SCS instructed the higher court of Shandong Province to review Nie’s case in December 2014. The court found that there were too many uncertainties to make a conviction.
The SCS then decided to retry the case in June 2016, and the ruling was overturned Friday.
#FINALLY Nie Shubin, who was executed 21 years ago for rape and murder, had his conviction overturned by China’s top court on Friday. pic.twitter.com/9pvVFognRZ
— People’s Daily,China (@PDChina) December 2, 2016
(Right: Nie Shubin; Left: Nie’s mother crying on her son’s grave)
Nie’s case is one of many wrongful Chinese convictions and executions that has surfaced in recent years, pointing to deep flaws in the Chinese judicial system, which has a highly-suspect 99.9 percent conviction rate.
Wrongful convictions are common during “strike hard” anti-crime campaigns. Nie was arrested, charged and executed during one such campaign.
Huugjilt, an 18-year-old boy from Inner Mongolia, was charged with rape and murder in 1996. He was given the a death sentence and executed the same year. Serial rapist and murderer Zhao Zhihong confessed to the murder almost a decade later in 2005.
Huugjilt was exonerated in 2014.
Overturning Nie’s conviction is of “major historical and realistic significance,” the SCS said in a statement.
“To some extent, this shows the determination of the central leadership to genuinely address some unjust cases,” Amnesty International’s William Nee told The New York Times.
“The Chinese government also wants to ensure that it is seen by the public as redressing these emblematic cases of injustice, and thereby restore greater legitimacy for its troubled criminal justice system,” he added.
The Hebei Provincial High People’s Court apologized for their mistakes and is reportedly preparing to compensate the parents for their loss.
The overhaul of the Chinese legal system has been a core aspiration for Chinese president Xi Jinping. The current administration, however, has also clamped down on social platforms for airing grievances over social injustices, which may make it difficult to reform the system.
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