High court’s permission to review case may be turning point: mother

Lawyers for a 21-year-old man who was executed for rape and murder in 1995 said on Wednesday that it is "highly likely" that the man was wrongly convicted as they have found loopholes in testimonies and suspect that some signatures could be forged.

Nie Shubin's lawyers were allowed full access to all his case files for the first time in two decades on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the High People's Court of Shandong Province.

"Based on the evidence in these documents it is highly likely that Nie was wrongly convicted. There is little direct evidence, such as his DNA on seminal stains," Chen Guangwu, one of Nie's attorneys, told the Global Times Wednesday.

Nie, a native of Hebei Province, was convicted at the Higher People's Court of Hebei Province of the rape and murder of a woman surnamed Kang in a cornfield on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Shijiazhuang in 1994. However, Wang Shujin, who had been separately convicted for the rape and murder of three women, confessed in 2005 that he was the responsible for Kang's death. Wang was also sentenced to death but has yet been executed.

Li Shuting, another attorney hired by Nie's mother, said Wednesday that at least eight signatures on the documents from Nie and his parents "do not look consistent" with their other signatures, news portal thepaper.cn reported.

Li suggested that the signatures may have been forged or that the court documents were filed [after the case was closed], which is against legal procedure.

Chen said that in his recorded testimonies, Nie failed to mention a set of keys that were found at the scene.

Wang confessed to the police that he had placed the keys by the side of the victim's body after he raped and murdered the woman.

"This may help prove that Nie was not the real perpetrator," Chen said.

Chen declined to reveal more details about the case as he was bound by a confidentiality agreement. However he noted that "there are many more problems, especially in police investigation records."

Wang's confession was rejected by the provincial high court in 2013 as his testimony disagreed with facts such as Kang's height, the cause of death and the time of the crime.

Nie's lawyers and his family said that they had applied to the High People's Court of Hebei Province to gain access to Wang's confession in 2005. All attempts had failed.

As Wang insists he is guilty, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) decided to appoint the Higher People's Court of Shandong Province to review the case in December 2014.

"I have been very satisfied with the Shandong high court's review progress so far. I hope it will be a turning point in my son's case so that the truth can be revealed," Zhang Huanzhi, Nie's mother, told the Global Times after she went to the higher court with the two lawyers on Tuesday.

Yang Jinzhu, an attorney who previously acted for Nie's family, hailed the Shandong high court's decision to release court files.

"It's huge progress, not only for the case but also shows the improvement in China's judicial organs," Yang told the Global Times.

"Judicial organs are making efforts to protect lawyers and litigators' rights by ensuring procedural justice. It also indicates the courts' will to correct any wrongful convictions," Wang Minyuan, a law professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Zhou Qiang, chief justice of China's Supreme People's Court, apologized for a spate of wrongful convictions in his work report at the annual session of the National People's Congress and asked courts at all levels to draw a lesson.

A number of wrongful convictions were corrected in 2014, including the case of 18-year-old Huugjilt from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, who was wrongly executed for rape and murder, and Nian Bin, who was acquitted in August last year after spending eight years in prison on charges of poisoning.