A man who confessed to murdering a woman in China 18 years ago went on trial on Monday, three weeks after a court cleared a teenager who was wrongfully executed for the crime.
The Intermediate People’s Court in Hohhot, the capital of China’s northern Inner Mongolia region, opened the proceedings against Zhao Zhihong (趙志紅) and is expected to announce a verdict this week, according to a statement on its official microblog.
The case — which has highlighted the shortcomings in the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-controlled legal system — centers on the rape and choking to death of a woman in the toilet of a Hohhot textile factory in 1996.
Photo: AFP
Soon after the incident, an 18-year-old named Hugjiltu was interrogated for 48 hours, after which he confessed to the crime. He was convicted, sentenced and executed for the crime 61 days after the woman was killed.
Hugjiltu’s family tried for years to prove his innocence. In 2005, Zhao was apprehended by authorities and confessed to more than a dozen rapes and murders, including the 1996 case, but the killing was not among nine for which he was tried the following year.
That court has not issued a verdict in the case, and Zhao has been under detention ever since.
Late last year the Hohhot court officially began a retrial of Hugjiltu, clearing him last month on grounds of “insufficient evidence.”
It said in an online post that his parents would receive more than 2 million yuan (US$330,000) in compensation.
Acquittals in China’s CCP-controlled court system are extremely rare — 99.93 percent of defendants in criminal cases were found guilty in 2013, according to official statistics.
The use of force to extract confessions remains widespread in the nation and defendants often do not have effective defense in criminal trials, leading to regular miscarriages of justice.
China cut the number of capital crimes from 68 to 55 in 2011. According to a report by US-based rights group the Dui Hua Foundation, it executed 2,400 people in 2013, down from 10,000 a decade ago.
China has occasionally exonerated wrongfully executed convicts after others came forward to confess their crimes, or in some cases because the supposed murder victim was later found alive.
However, the CCP is attempting to reduce public anger over injustices by lessening the influence of local officials over some court cases, and reversing verdicts in some high-profile cases.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was