Guangdong man gets record damages for wrongful imprisonment
Steel worker who spent 11 years in prison after being framed for cheque fraud receives a record 825,000 yuan in compensation
A Guangdong man who was wrongly jailed for 11 years has received about 825,000 yuan (HK$1.02 million) in compensation after being exonerated by a local court in 2010.
The payout was the highest ever granted under the national compensation law, according to his lawyer.
Huang Liyi , a 39-year-old former employee at a steel company in Kaiping , was sentenced to life in jail in 2000 for cheque fraud involving 2.14 million yuan. He had already served a year in jail before his conviction, and he remained behind bars until 2010.
"I'm happier now; at least I have my freedom back. But I don't want to speak more because being jailed is not something I'm proud of," Huang told the South China Morning Post yesterday. "I'm collecting more evidence, and I want to see those who framed me penalised. I would much rather live without the compensation if justice could be served."
However, his Beijing-based lawyer, Yang Xuelin , said the odds of anyone being held accountable for framing Huang were slim.
The exoneration "was not a procedural outcome, but simply a stroke of luck", Yang said. "It will not open the floodgates. We probably won't see another [exoneration] anytime soon, because this country's justice system has no mechanism to correct mistakes."
The Guangdong Higher People's Court on Monday awarded Huang 665,889 yuan for his loss of freedom, and 160,000 yuan for psychological and emotional distress, The Southern Metropolis News reported yesterday.