Million yuan for men wrongly jailed
By Xu Chi |
May 21, 2013, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
An uncle and his nephew, wrongly imprisoned for rape and murder in 2004, have been awarded about 1.1 million yuan (US$180,000) each in compensation.
Zhang Gaoping and Zhang Hui asked for combined compensation of 2.66 million yuan on May 2 and the Zhejiang Province Higher People's Court ruled on Friday that they would be paid a total of 2.21 million yuan.
About 650,000 yuan of each award is for the loss of their freedom and the rest is for emotional distress, the court said.
The men were acquitted on March 26 after a retrial found insufficient evidence to support their conviction and the discovery of new evidence indicating the possibility of another suspect.
The men had given a lift to 17-year-old Wang Dong when transporting freight to Shanghai on the night of May 18, 2003.
They dropped her off in Shanghai's neighboring city of Hangzhou at 1:50am the next day and continued to Shanghai.
Wang's naked body was discovered later that day and the two men, probably the last people to see her alive, became suspects.
They were detained a few days later on May 23.
Zhang Gaoping was then 38 years old and his nephew 27.
When guilty verdicts were passed in 2004 despite a lack of police evidence, the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court said it "could not exclude the possibility" that they had committed the crime.
Zhang Hui was sentenced to death, Zhang Gaoping to life imprisonment.
At a second trial at the Zhejiang Higher People's Court in October the same year, the sentence for the uncle was reduced to death with a two-year reprieve and that for the nephew cut to 15 years.
After the verdicts, Zhang Gaoping's second wife, who was four months pregnant, divorced him and aborted the baby.
Zhang Hui's girlfriend, who was planning their wedding, ended the relationship, according to the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald.
Their family in rural Anhui Province is said to have suffered discrimination and struggled with poverty.
Zhang Gaoping's two daughters quit school and became migrant workers while his heartbroken mother passed away in 2009.
Zhang Gaoping and Zhang Hui asked for combined compensation of 2.66 million yuan on May 2 and the Zhejiang Province Higher People's Court ruled on Friday that they would be paid a total of 2.21 million yuan.
About 650,000 yuan of each award is for the loss of their freedom and the rest is for emotional distress, the court said.
The men were acquitted on March 26 after a retrial found insufficient evidence to support their conviction and the discovery of new evidence indicating the possibility of another suspect.
The men had given a lift to 17-year-old Wang Dong when transporting freight to Shanghai on the night of May 18, 2003.
They dropped her off in Shanghai's neighboring city of Hangzhou at 1:50am the next day and continued to Shanghai.
Wang's naked body was discovered later that day and the two men, probably the last people to see her alive, became suspects.
They were detained a few days later on May 23.
Zhang Gaoping was then 38 years old and his nephew 27.
When guilty verdicts were passed in 2004 despite a lack of police evidence, the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court said it "could not exclude the possibility" that they had committed the crime.
Zhang Hui was sentenced to death, Zhang Gaoping to life imprisonment.
At a second trial at the Zhejiang Higher People's Court in October the same year, the sentence for the uncle was reduced to death with a two-year reprieve and that for the nephew cut to 15 years.
After the verdicts, Zhang Gaoping's second wife, who was four months pregnant, divorced him and aborted the baby.
Zhang Hui's girlfriend, who was planning their wedding, ended the relationship, according to the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald.
Their family in rural Anhui Province is said to have suffered discrimination and struggled with poverty.
Zhang Gaoping's two daughters quit school and became migrant workers while his heartbroken mother passed away in 2009.
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