Man wrongfully imprisoned receives record compensation

Jin Zhehong, 51, who spent 23 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of intentional homicide in Northeast China's Jilin province, received 4.68 million yuan ($654, 444) in compensation on Friday.

The compensation from the Jilin High People's Court included 2.67 million yuan for Jin's loss of personal freedom and 2 million yuan in personal damages, according to the court's decision provided by Jin's lawyer.

Both the total award and the portion for personal damages were the highest amounts paid by a Chinese court in compensation for an overturned wrongful conviction since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in late 2012.

Although Jin applied for 21.3 million yuan in compensation in June, the payment he obtained on Friday is the best result he could get under the current State Compensation Law, according to Qu Zhenhong, Jin's lawyer.

The money will be mainly used to help Jin live a stable life and pay his medical fees, Qu said.

Jin's case dates back to Sept 29, 1995, when a woman's body was found near a railway track in Jilin's Shuanghe township, Yongji county.

Several days later, Jin, then 27, was named a suspect and detained.

Jin was sentenced to death penalty in 1996 with a two-year reprieve for the crime of intentional homicide by the Jilin Intermediate People's Court.

He appealed and a year later, the provincial high people's court sent the case back to the lower court for a retrial, but the intermediate court upheld the ruling.

The higher court in 1998 returned the case to the lower court after Jin appealed again, but the judgment remained the same.

Two years later, the higher court approved the ruling, even though Jin continually appealed during those years.

The case turned in 2014, when the high court considered a retrial due to the repeated appeals and media reports on possible torture during Jin's confession.

On Oct 24, 2018, the high court cleared Jin's name.

It said that it was uncertain whether Jin had the time, tools and motives to carry out the killing, "so the chain of the evidence in the case was not complete enough to prove the conviction".