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Teenage inmate beaten into comatose state

THE family of a 17-year-old prisoner who was beaten into a vegetative state by five inmates is seeking 2.01 million yuan (US$301,700) in compensation in eastern Anhui Province. The police detention house earlier attributed the boy's sickness to heat stroke.

The brain-damaged Wang Enhui has been lying motionless in an intensive care unit in the Anhui Provincial People's Hospital, never again speaking or reacting to his parents, reported Henan-based Zhengzhou Evening news today.

Wang fell into coma on August 13 and the authorities of the detention house in Yingshang County tried to convince his parents it was caused by heat stroke. Wang's father didn't buy that because his son had a swollen head, bruises and burns in his body and a two-centimeter knife cut. A X-ray scan later showed he also suffered a broken skull.

A surveillance video proved the father's fear right. It showed five prisoners forcing Wang to kneel on the ground to eat papers at night. When Wang begged to let him go back to sleep, they kicked and punched him until he fell down. No prison guard ever came to intervene.

Wang's mother told an Anhui newspaper that Wang said he was long tortured and never received the money the family sent him during a trial in July.

Two prison guards held responsible have been removed from duty while the detention house received Wang's family's request for state compensation on December 10. The chief of Yingshang Public Security Bureau, Liu Xicai, said they will pay all the cost for the boy's treatment. Wang's father said the bureau had covered medical bills of up to 500,000 yuan.

But the family said they would feel guilty for their son if they stopped seeking compensation. Citizens are entitled to state compensation if their rights are violated due to negligence of duty or malpractice by government personnel, according to a revised State Compensation Law.

The law took force this month, following a string of unnatural deaths in China's detention houses and prisons, some of which turned out to be caused by guards or other inmates.



 

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