Man detained for 27 years cleared of homicide

A man wrongly detained for about 27 years had his name cleared on Tuesday after a retrial ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove him guilty of intentional killing.

The Jiangxi High People's Court overturned an original ruling that gave Zhang Yuhuan a suspended death sentence and declared the 52-year-old not guilty because the chain of evidence in his case was not complete enough to prove he committed the crime.

In October 1993, two boys in a village in Nanchang, Jiangxi's provincial capital, were killed. A few days later, Zhang was named the suspect and detained.

When the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court heard the case, Zhang said he was tortured by police during interrogation and denied killing the boys.

But in January 1995, Zhang was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for the crime of intentional homicide. He then appealed the ruling to a higher court.

Two months later, the high people's court sent the case back to the intermediate people's court for retrial, citing insufficient evidence.

More than six years later, the intermediate people's court reheard the case and upheld its original ruling.

Zhang appealed to the high people's court again, but it rejected his appeal.

Zhang refused to confess to the crime while serving the sentence in prison, and his family members helped him continue to lodge appeals.

In March last year, the high people's court decided to retry the case. At the retrial, which opened on July 9 this year, provincial prosecutors said the evidence made it difficult to prove Zhang's guilt and suggested the court should overturn his conviction.