China’s top court finds man executed 21 years ago innocent

More than two decades after he was executed for rape and murder, China’s Supreme Court on Friday overturned the conviction of a young man, in a landmark case that exposed flaws in the Communist nation’s criminal justice system.

Nie Shubin, who was 20 years old when he faced a firing squad in 1995 after being convicted of rape and murder, had his conviction overturned by second circuit court under the Supreme People’s Court, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The court re-heard the two-decades-old rape and murder case, in which Nie was found guilty and executed, over concerns that the evidence presented was insufficient. 

Nie, from Hebei Province, was convicted of raping and murdering a woman, whose body was discovered by her father in a corn field on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang city, in the northern province of Hebei.

In 2005, another man confessed to the crime. In December 2014, the SPC, following an application from Hebei Higher People’s Court, assigned the higher court of Shandong Province to review the case. A five-member panel at the Shandong court carried out the review and found that the evidence presented in the original trial did not identify Nie as the perpetrator.