Top court retries rape, murder case, doubts execution

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) will rehear a two-decades-old rape and murder case, in which a man was found guilty and executed, over concerns that the evidence presented was insufficient.

The decision to launch a retrial was made on Monday by the SPC, and the family of the convict, Nie Shubin, were informed Wednesday.

Nie, from Hebei Province, was convicted and executed in 1995 for the rape and murder of a woman in Hebei's capital, Shijiazhuang. In 2005, another man confessed to the crime.

In December 2014, the SPC, following an application from Hebei Higher People's Court, assigned the higher court of Shandong Province to review the case.

A five-member panel at the Shandong court carried out the review and found that the evidence presented in the original trial did not identify Nie as the perpetrator beyond all doubt, and the trial and investigation were both peppered with major inconsistences.

Thus, the panel concluded that the evidence was questionable and suggested the case be reheard.

The SPC statement said the panel, during its review, had examined the case files, listened to the defendant's lawyer and consulted forensic scientists over the autopsy report.

The panel also visited Hebei several times to gather opinions from both sides of the case and assigned qualified institutions to carry out necessary investigative work.

The SPC agreed with the Shandong court's suggestion.

It said in the statement that a retrial panel will be established to hear the case and that any developments will be made public.

Nie's case has been compared to a 1996 case in Inner Mongolia, where a teenager named Huugjilt was executed for the rape and murder of a woman the same year. A self-confessed serial rapist and killer later admitted to the crime while in police custody in 2005.

In December 2014, Huugjilt's conviction was officially quashed by Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regional Higher People's Court. Endi