Top court to rehear 1994 rape case
Print Edition
CHINA’S top court is to re-examine a 22-year-old murder and rape case after a regional court review found the evidence insufficient.
Nie Shubin, 21, was executed in 1995 in north China’s Hebei Province for raping and killing a woman in provincial capital Shijiazhuang the year before.
In 2005, serial rapist and murderer Wang Shujin said he was responsible for the crime, but the claim was rejected by Hebei Higher People’s Court.
However, the confession raised questions and Nie’s family launched an appeal.
In December 2014, the SPC assigned a court in Shandong Province to review the case and a five-member panel found the evidence in the original trial did not identify Nie as the perpetrator beyond all doubt. It also said that both the trial and investigation were peppered with major inconsistencies.
The panel concluded the evidence was questionable and suggested the case be reheard.
The SPC said the panel had examined case files, listened to the defendant’s lawyer and consulted forensic scientists over the autopsy report. It had also visited Hebei several times to gather opinions from both sides of the case and assigned qualified institutions to carry out necessary investigative work.
The SPC said a retrial panel will be established to hear the case and that any developments will be made public.
“The Shandong higher court found the evidence to convict Nie wasn’t solid or sufficient,” the SPC said in a statement.
“Also, great doubts were cast over several aspects like when the crime was committed, which tools were used to kill the woman and how the woman died. It couldn’t be ruled out that the crime was committed by someone else,” it said
In an interview with Xinhua news agency, the Shandong court said they had found Nie’s signatures on six legal documents to have been fabricated, but that fingerprints on the documents were his. The court said it had not found any evidence to show Nie had been tortured into make a false confession.
Li Shuting, Nie’s lawyer, said he would be producing a new witness at the supreme court hearing.
Nie’s mother, Zhang Huanzhi, is said to have broken down in tears when she received news of the supreme court’s decision.
Nie’s case has been compared to a 1996 case in Inner Mongolia, where a teenager named Huugjilt was executed for rape and murder. In 2005, a serial rapist and killer in police custody admitted to the crime.
In December 2014, Huugjilt’s conviction was quashed by Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Higher People’s Court.
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