CHINA: MAN COMPENSATED FOR WRONGFUL CONVICTION
January 15, 2019: A man who was acquitted after spending 25 years in prison in northeast China's Jilin Province was offered compensation from the state on 7 January 2019. The Intermediate People's Court in the city of Liaoyuan ruled that Liu Zhonglin should be paid 4.6 million yuan (around 670,000 U.S. dollars) for his wrongful 9,217-day incarceration. In 1990, a woman was found dead in a crop field by a villager in Dongliao County. Liu was identified as a suspect and detained soon after. Liu was given a suspended death sentence for murder by the court in 1994, and a year later the provincial higher people's court upheld the ruling. Liu and his family repeatedly appealed, and he had his reprieved death sentence commuted to a 25-year prison term. He was released in 2016. His verdict was revoked in April 2018 as the higher court ruled that the previous convictions were based on unclear facts and insufficient evidence. (Sources: Xinhua, 07/01/2019)
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