Henan villager jailed for over 15 yrs vindicated in retrial

A villager in Henan province, who has been jailed for more than 15 years, has had his name cleared on Wednesday for insufficient evidence to prove his conviction of intentional homicide after a retrial.

At 9:15 am on Wednesday, the Henan High People's Court overturned an original ruling in which the villager Wu Chunhong was given life imprisonment, announcing Wu, now 49, is not guilty, as the chain of evidence in his case was not complete to prove his conviction.

In November 2004, a boy in Minquan county, Shangqiu city in the province, died from poisoning after eating homemade food containing flour. His elder brother was admitted to hospital but then recovered.

A few days later, Wu was named as the suspect and criminally detained. In June 2005, he was sentenced to a suspected death for the crime of intentional homicide by the Shangqiu Intermediate People's Court, but the high people's court ordered a retrial after Wu appealed.

In the following years, the intermediate people's court gave the same sentence for the same criminal charge to Wu twice, with the high people's court rejecting both results and sending the case back to the lower court each time.

In October 2008, Wu was sentenced to life in prison and the high people's court then upheld the ruling.

After decade of efforts by Wu's family to appeal the decision, the Supreme People's Court, China's top court, ordered the Henan High People's Court to retry the case in 2018. A year later, the high people's court did the rehearing.