Court's final ruling could clear 4 convicted 'killers'
Source: Xinhua |
June 28, 2013, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A COURT in east China's Zhejiang Province yesterday upheld the death penalty with a two-year reprieve for a man who was convicted of killing a taxi driver in 1995, as they found that the case may have been incorrectly ruled.
The Zhejiang Higher People's Court rejected an appeal by Xiang Shengyuan, 41, who was sentenced to death with two years' reprieve for committing homicide by the Intermediate People's Court of Jiaxing City on May 30.
On March 20, 1995, Xiang, a resident of Xiaoshan District in Zhejiang's capital Hangzhou, had a quarrel with a taxi driver, Xu Caihua. Xiang hit Xu in the face with a rock and strangled her to death before driving away. He later dumped the car and took Xu's belongings and cash.
However, four other men were convicted of robbing and killing Xu. Three of them received suspended death sentence and the other was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Zhejiang higher court on July 11, 1997.
In May, the Zhejiang higher court granted a retrial for the four who may have been wrongly convicted. Their retrial opened on Tuesday.
Xiang, who was previously jailed for theft in 1991, wasn't discovered until July 2011, when police who were conducting an anti-theft campaign noticed that his fingerprints matched those found at the scene of Xu's death.
The Zhejiang Higher People's Court rejected an appeal by Xiang Shengyuan, 41, who was sentenced to death with two years' reprieve for committing homicide by the Intermediate People's Court of Jiaxing City on May 30.
On March 20, 1995, Xiang, a resident of Xiaoshan District in Zhejiang's capital Hangzhou, had a quarrel with a taxi driver, Xu Caihua. Xiang hit Xu in the face with a rock and strangled her to death before driving away. He later dumped the car and took Xu's belongings and cash.
However, four other men were convicted of robbing and killing Xu. Three of them received suspended death sentence and the other was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Zhejiang higher court on July 11, 1997.
In May, the Zhejiang higher court granted a retrial for the four who may have been wrongly convicted. Their retrial opened on Tuesday.
Xiang, who was previously jailed for theft in 1991, wasn't discovered until July 2011, when police who were conducting an anti-theft campaign noticed that his fingerprints matched those found at the scene of Xu's death.
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