Police 'sorry' for shoddy probe
By Leeann Li |
March 30, 2013, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
AN uncle-nephew pair, who had been wrongly implicated in a rape and murder case and served a decade in jail, were victims of slipshod police investigation for which the duo paid dearly.
Zhejiang's provincial police department publicly apologized on Thursday for botching up the investigation two days after they were acquitted by a Hangzhou court.
Police admitted that investigators handling the case may have used another convict named Yuan Lianfang to frame the duo with false confessions.
"Police should take responsibility. We feel so sorry for them. We have ordered Hangzhou police to aid our official investigation, and any one who is found guilty won't be shielded," the provincial police wrote on its official microblog.
Zhang Gaoping and his nephew Zhang Hui were acquitted by the Zhejiang Province Higher People's Court on Tuesday after it reversed its 2004 ruling which sentenced them to death with a two-year reprieve for killing and raping a woman in Hangzhou.
They can now apply for government compensation, the court said.
"You are judges or prosecutors, but your children will not necessarily be judges or prosecutors. Without legal protection, they may be wronged and could face a possible death sentence just like me," Zhang Gaoping told officers at an improvised courthouse in a prison in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, on Tuesday.
Zhang Gaoping, then 38, and his newphew Zhang Hui, then 27, were sentenced even though their crimes had never been proved to satisfaction. Even their DNA did not match with the victim's, "but the result could not exclude their possibility of committing the crime," the court said in its sentencing in 2004.
After the verdict, Zhang Gaoping's second wife, who was four months pregnant, divorced him and aborted the baby.
Zhang Hui's girlfriend, both of whom planned to marry, dumped him, according to Xiaoxiang Morning Herald.
Their whole family in rural Anhui Province suffered discrimination and struggled with poverty. Zhang Gaoping's two daughters quit school and became migrant workers. Zhang Gaoping's heartbroken mother died a sad death in 2009.
While serving their prison terms in remote Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Zhang Gaoping said he never tried to work hard to have his sentence commuted.
"I was innocent," he said.
But, Yuan Lianfang, the "witness," whose evidence helped send the two to jail, was released in September 2004 and escaped punishment, the Nanfang Weekly reported.
Yuan, 51, a Hangzhou native, was sentenced to six years in jail for selling pornographic videos in May 2001. He became the "eyes and ears of police," and enjoyed a comfortable life even in the detention center, the paper reported.
Zhang Hui spent time at the Gongshu District Detention House in 2003 during which he shared the room with several others, including Yuan.
Yuan claimed he knew Zhang Hui was guilty and gave "the full details of the time, place and how he murdered the woman with his uncle," the paper claimed.
Yuan, along with other convicts, would beat him regularly until he confessed, Yangcheng Evening News reported.
The court heard that investigators traced the DNA to another suspect, a man named Gou Haifeng, who was executed in 2005 for another murder case.
Zhejiang's provincial police department publicly apologized on Thursday for botching up the investigation two days after they were acquitted by a Hangzhou court.
Police admitted that investigators handling the case may have used another convict named Yuan Lianfang to frame the duo with false confessions.
"Police should take responsibility. We feel so sorry for them. We have ordered Hangzhou police to aid our official investigation, and any one who is found guilty won't be shielded," the provincial police wrote on its official microblog.
Zhang Gaoping and his nephew Zhang Hui were acquitted by the Zhejiang Province Higher People's Court on Tuesday after it reversed its 2004 ruling which sentenced them to death with a two-year reprieve for killing and raping a woman in Hangzhou.
They can now apply for government compensation, the court said.
"You are judges or prosecutors, but your children will not necessarily be judges or prosecutors. Without legal protection, they may be wronged and could face a possible death sentence just like me," Zhang Gaoping told officers at an improvised courthouse in a prison in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, on Tuesday.
Zhang Gaoping, then 38, and his newphew Zhang Hui, then 27, were sentenced even though their crimes had never been proved to satisfaction. Even their DNA did not match with the victim's, "but the result could not exclude their possibility of committing the crime," the court said in its sentencing in 2004.
After the verdict, Zhang Gaoping's second wife, who was four months pregnant, divorced him and aborted the baby.
Zhang Hui's girlfriend, both of whom planned to marry, dumped him, according to Xiaoxiang Morning Herald.
Their whole family in rural Anhui Province suffered discrimination and struggled with poverty. Zhang Gaoping's two daughters quit school and became migrant workers. Zhang Gaoping's heartbroken mother died a sad death in 2009.
While serving their prison terms in remote Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Zhang Gaoping said he never tried to work hard to have his sentence commuted.
"I was innocent," he said.
But, Yuan Lianfang, the "witness," whose evidence helped send the two to jail, was released in September 2004 and escaped punishment, the Nanfang Weekly reported.
Yuan, 51, a Hangzhou native, was sentenced to six years in jail for selling pornographic videos in May 2001. He became the "eyes and ears of police," and enjoyed a comfortable life even in the detention center, the paper reported.
Zhang Hui spent time at the Gongshu District Detention House in 2003 during which he shared the room with several others, including Yuan.
Yuan claimed he knew Zhang Hui was guilty and gave "the full details of the time, place and how he murdered the woman with his uncle," the paper claimed.
Yuan, along with other convicts, would beat him regularly until he confessed, Yangcheng Evening News reported.
The court heard that investigators traced the DNA to another suspect, a man named Gou Haifeng, who was executed in 2005 for another murder case.
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