Errors found in China murder case 20 years after execution

BEIJING - Lawyers claimed on Thursday to have found errors during a rough review of a 1994 rape-murder case concerning Nie Shubin, who was executed 20 years ago.

Li Shuting, an attorneys for Nie's families, told Xinhua that he found several "evident errors" while duplicating Nie's case files, most of which involve legal procedure.

"I was astonished. The errors are so obvious that we can see them just at a glance," Li said.

For instance, Nie was executed on April 27, 1995, but the signature on his petition for appeal was inscribed on May 13, which is patently impossible. He also said the handwriting appears different from Nie's.

Nie was executed in 1995 at the age of 21 for the rape and murder of a woman in Hebei's provincial capital, Shijiazhuang. The case reemerged when another man, Wang Shujin, insisted that he was guilty and Nie innocent.

Wang, 48, was apprehended by police in 2005 for three unconnected rape and murder cases, and confessed to a rape and murder with the same facts as in Nie's case. Hebei Higher People's Court, which approved the death penalty for Nie in 1995, rejected Wang's request for a retrial in 2013 and still believes Nie is the murderer.

Judicial impartiality has been openly questioned recently in China and in December, the Supreme People's Court ordered the Shandong Higher People's Court to review the case.

"We will go over the court files and submit our opinion as soon as possible," Li said.

The Shandong court will reopen the trial if it is concluded that the case was wrongly judged.