Court rejects appeal of man who claims another killing

The Hebei High People's Court rejected an appeal by a high-profile criminal on Tuesday, upholding his convictions for rape and intentional homicide as well as his death sentence, Beijing News reported.

Wang Shujin, from Hebei province, has been sitting on death row for about a decade for serial rape and murder. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for rape and received the death penalty for intentional homicide on Nov 24 after a retrial at the Handan Intermediate People's Court in Hebei found him guilty of four rapes, three killings and an attempted killing from 1993 to 1995.

The death penalty will be submitted to the Supreme People's Court, China's top court, for review. It can be carried out if it is approved by the top court, according to the Criminal Procedure Law.

It is the second time the Handan court has sentenced Wang to death and the high court has upheld the ruling. It is also the second time his death penalty has been sent for review by the top court.

Wang, 53, attracted public attention in 2005 when he was detained and voluntarily confessed to several rapes and murders. In 2007, the Handan court sentenced him to death after finding him guilty of three rapes, two killings and an attempted murder.

The death penalty was upheld by the provincial high court in 2013 and then submitted to the Supreme People's Court for review.

On Nov 9, however, the top court overturned Wang's death sentence and sent the case back to the Handan court for retrial because of newly discovered evidence.

At the retrial, the Handan court said the new evidence was the result of a DNA test on a skeleton found by police following directions given by Wang. It was related to the rape and murder of a woman surnamed Zhang in 1993 that Wang confessed to while in detention.

The confession was not supported by prosecutors in the 2007 trial, but this time the Handan court found Wang guilty of killing Zhang, as the DNA test proved the skeleton was hers.

But Wang remained unhappy with the decision because it did not include another killing he claims to be responsible for.

In 2005, he also confessed to raping and killing a woman surnamed Kang in a cornfield in Shijiazhuang, Hebei's provincial capital, in 1994.Although the confession was rejected by the Handan court, it generated public attention because another man, Nie Shubin, had already been sentenced to death and executed for the crimes in 1995.

Wang's confession to Kang's rape and murder prompted a reinvestigation of the case. In December 2016, the top court posthumously pronounced Nie not guilty because evidence in the case was not strong enough to convict him.

At last month's retrial, Wang still insisted he raped and killed Kang, but the prosecutors again rejected the confession, adding his testimony did not match the physical evidence in the case.

"My client has always insisted that he was responsible in Kang's case, thinking judges should make it clear, so he appealed to the high court," Zhu Aimin, Wang's lawyer, told reporters after Wang was sentenced to death on Nov 24.