CHINA / National

China lauds solved murder rate, slams torture remarks
(Agencies)
Updated: 2006-05-16 15:14

Last year, China freed a man who spent 11 years in jail for allegedly murdering his wife after the woman turned up alive. The man, She Xianglin, said he had confessed to the crime under torture.


She Xianglin is earnest for the sun shine while his eye disease affected in jail makes him allergic to it. [China Youth Daily]

She Xianglin sits at the roadside of his hometown, feeling unfit into a normal life and overwhelmingly lonely. [China Youth Daily]

In loving and sorrowful memory of his late mother She sits in silence. [China Youth Daily]

She Xianglin burns incense kneeling down in front of mom's grave. [China Youth Daily]

11-year wrongful imprisonment has left She with a deformed left hand. [China Youth Daily]

Accompanied only by cigarettes She Xianglin lives a loney life in his room. [China Youth Daily]

Life ahead of She is hard to confront. [China Youth Daily]

She is seen in front of a iron hedge. [China Youth Daily]

In another case, the children of a Chinese butcher executed for murdering a waitress appealed against his conviction after his "victim" turned up alive.

He said such cases were very rare.

"Over the past few years we have taken measures against the practice of forced confessions. Such cases are happening less and less now," he said.

"It is not a serious problem," He added.

China has in the past recognised there was a problem, last year passing a bill mandating punishment for police who torture detainees during interrogation.

He said interrogations were recorded and prosecutors operated independently of police, asking detainees to sign papers saying they were not forced into confessing crimes.

"Police chasing homicide cases must guarantee the quality of their work and be impartial, enforcing the law and punishing criminals and certainly not wronging innocent people," He said.

But he admited there was still a problem solving murders in certain areas, mainly in the poor, rural northwest and western parts of the country, where police could also not guarantee interrogations would be recorded.

"The country is very big, economic development uneven and police resources are limited," he said.


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