Court clears student convicted of killing classmate in 2003
Print Edition
A FORMER postgraduate student sentenced to death for a 2003 murder was yesterday declared innocent by a court in central China’s Hunan Province.
The Xiangtan City Intermediate People’s Court said there was insufficient evidence to uphold the conviction of Zeng Aiyun, then an engineering student at Xiangtan University in Hunan’s Xiangtan City, for the killing of his classmate Zhou Yuheng, China News Service reported.
Zeng had been sentenced to death three times by the same court. However, the Supreme People’s Court rejected the verdicts and ordered a retrial.
When Zeng and another classmate, Chen Huazhang, were arrested in November 2003, two weeks after the killing, Chen blamed Zeng, saying that while he had added poison to Zhou’s drink, Zeng had strangled him.
Police believed that both Chen and Zeng had conspired in the killing, according to thepaper.cn. Chen was said to be jealous of the attention Zhou enjoyed from their mentor, while Zeng was in love with the victim’s ex-girlfriend, the court heard.
Zeng had initially denied strangling Zhou, but later confessed.
At their trial in July 2004, Zeng accused police of torturing him into making a false confession and insisted on his innocence at several hearings.
Zeng was sentenced to death, while Chen received life imprisonment.
Chen’s life sentence was upheld yesterday and he was fined 178,143 yuan (US$29,108) to be paid to the victim’s family.
“After reviewing the case, we found unclear facts and insufficient evidence to support Zeng’s conviction,” the court said yesterday.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
