Judge suspended in case of Chinese man tortured into false murder confession

Judge suspended in China coerced confession case

BEIJING — A Chinese provincial high court chief justice has been suspended over a case in which a man spent 11 years in jail after being tortured into confessing to a murder he did not commit, a court official said Wednesday.

Henan province Chief Justice Hu Ye is among four judges and three police officers under investigation in the case of Zhao Zuohai, who was released from prison this month after the man he was accused of killing reappeared alive.

Hu had reviewed Zhao’s conviction and approved his suspended death sentence, according to a clerk at the Henan High Court’s office of supervision, who identified herself only as Ms. Wang.

She declined to say what specific infraction Hu is being investigated over.

The Zhao case highlighted the frequent use of torture by Chinese police, as well as stuttering attempts to reform a Chinese legal system that is widely seen as corrupt and heavily subject to political influence.

Zhao, now 57, was arrested in 1999 after a neighbor disappeared following an argument between the two. A headless body believed to be the other man was later found.

Zhao says he confessed only after police beat him and deprived him of sleep over several days of interrogation.

After he went to prison, Zhao’s wife remarried and two of his children were adopted by her new husband. The other two children left home to work as migrant laborers. Since his release, Zhao has been awarded $96,000 in government compensation from judicial officials.

Chinese police are under intense pressure to close cases quickly and coercing confessions is seen as a convenient alternative to investigative work for which officers lack the training and equipment.

Two of the officers in the Zhao case have been accused of carrying out the torture and have been detained. State media has reported that their families said they were ordered to carry out the abuse by their superior officer at the time. A third officer under investigation remains free.

Confessions are given enormous weight in court, virtually guaranteeing conviction, and it wasn’t clear in what way the judges involved in the case could be found liable.

The other three judges under investigation had presided at Zhao’s trial in the Henan city of Shangqiu and passed the suspended death sentence on him.

In recent years, China has taken gradual steps to address torture, partly by releasing guidelines that identify specific acts of abuse for which police can be prosecuted. Beijing last year also pledged to clamp down on violence against inmates, with the Public Security Ministry saying nearly 1,800 policemen were suspended over such incidents.