Man convicted fourth time for same murder

A man sentenced to death three times－and later exonerated－for strangling a 16-year-old boy and dumping his body in a public toilet in Anhui province in 2007, was found guilty of the same crime again on Wednesday.

Zuo Desheng was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for the murder of Zhou Yang after his latest trial, which started on Nov 25 at the Anhui High People's Court. He was briefly released in June after the same court acquitted him of a charge of murder due to a lack of supporting evidence.

Zhou's body was found in a public toilet in Yingshang county, Fuyang, on Feb 25, 2007. Three years later, Zuo and Liu Daosheng were arrested for stealing cables. Liu told the police that Zuo had told him that those who oppose him will end up like Zhou. Zuo also told Liu how the 16-year-old was killed, according to police investigations.

Zuo allegedly suspected Zhou of stealing the external unit of the air conditioner at his internet cafe. He then asked two people to tag along to question Zhou on Jan 13, 2007. They picked Zhou up at the entrance of Jiangdian High School in a taxi driven by Shi Xiujian and stopped near the former Jiangdianzi township government building. The three then started beating Zhou violently to make him confess. Zhou fled and ran toward a public toilet. Zuo and an accomplice then strangled Zhou with a rope. After Zhou was killed, the three men dumped his body in the toilet. They fled the scene in the taxi, the court files said.

On May 3, 2011, the Fuyang Intermediate People's Court sentenced Zuo to death for intentional homicide. Seven months later, the high court asked the intermediate court to withdraw the sentence and started a retrial.

At the retrial, the intermediate court sentenced Zuo to death again on Oct 17, 2012. The high court then filed the decision to the Supreme People's Court, China's top court, for approval of the death penalty. On Dec 26, 2014, the top court rejected Zuo's death sentence due to the ineligibility of facts presented at his trial and a lack of evidence and ordered a retrial.

On Feb 3, 2016, the intermediate court sentenced Zuo to death for a third time, and the high court then filed the decision with the Supreme People's Court. On Oct 30, 2018, the top court again rejected the death sentence for the same reasons and ordered another retrial.

On May 25 this year, the high court withdrew Zuo's death sentence due to ineligible facts and a lack of evidence. It said the case lacked objective evidence and there were unexplainable inconsistencies in testimonies. Zuo was released on June 23 as he had already completed his prison sentence for theft.

Upon his release, the Anhui People's Procuratorate protested the decision, while there were public expressions of shock about the sudden turn in the case. On July 6, the high court decided to reexamine the case. On Aug 5, the retrial procedure started and Zuo was arrested again.

The high court said that although there were discrepancies between Liu's testimony and police investigations, his words could still lead to the conclusion that Zuo was involved in the killing and should be accepted in court. Also, Shi, the taxi driver, appeared in court four times. He changed his statements twice fearing revenge, but the core information in his statements remained unchanged.

The case's investigation was launched more than three years after the crime so there was a lack of objective evidence to support the death sentence but the evidence was strong enough to show Zuo was the key criminal, so a death sentence with a reprieve is appropriate, the court said.