Hearing reviews 20-year-old rape and murder case

A one-day hearing for a rape and murder case in which a young man was executed only for another convict to confess to the crime has begun at a court in east China's Shandong Province.

Nie Shubin, a native of Hebei Province, which neighbors Shandong, was executed in 1995 at the age of 21 after he was convicted of raping and murdering a woman in Shijiazhuang, Hebei's capital. However, in 2005, a man named Wang Shujin said he was behind the crime.

The hearing began at around 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday at Shandong Higher People's Court. It was attended by Nie's family, their legal team, academics, invited members of the public and officials representing those involved in the original trial, according to the court's microblog.

Wang was apprehended by police in 2005 for three unconnected rape and murder cases. He was sentenced to death in 2007, claiming that he also raped and murdered a woman in a cornfield on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang in 1994 and that Nie was innocent.

In 2013, Hebei Higher People's Court, which approved Nie's death penalty in 1995, overruled Wang's claim. The decision raised public questions about judicial impartiality.

In December, the Supreme People's Court asked Shandong Higher People's Court to review the case.

Li Shuting, a lawyer for Nie's family, previously said he had found "evident errors", mostly involving legal procedure, in Nie's case files. Endi