Shandong man receives compensation for wrongful detention

Zhang Zhichao, a man from Shandong province who had his name cleared after being wrongfully detained for more than 14 years, received state compensation of about 3.32 million yuan ($512,472) on Tuesday from a local court.

The Linyi Intermediate People's Court posted the compensation decision via its WeChat account, saying the amount was decided after several negotiations with Zhang and his lawyers, with consideration of the duration that Zhang was wrongly detained, his mental damage and also local average living standards.

The court did not specify how much was meant to respectively cover Zhang's wrongful detention and mental anguish .

Zhang's case began in January 2005, when a girl went missing. Her body was later found in a restroom at a high school in the province's Linshu county. Zhang, then 16, was named as the suspect and detained by local police.

In March 2006, he was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison by the intermediate court. Another man, Wang Guangchao, who was Zhang's classmate and identified as having helped Zhang cover up the offense, was sentenced to three years with a three-year reprieve.

Zhang said he was tortured during the police interrogations.

After his mother's frequent appeals, the Supreme People's Court, China's top court, demanded the Shandong High People's court rehear the case at the end of 2017.

In January 2020, Zhang was found not guilty by the high court, as the evidence in the case was not sufficient to prove his conviction.