Deadline for death sentence in Fujian murder case extended

A telephone call on Friday has again delayed a decision in a murder trial in coastal China, which the nation's highest court called flawed, and has exposed the worrying consequences of a hasty high-profile crime investigation.

In the summer of 2006, Nian Bin, then 30, worked as a food stall owner in Woqian village in Pingtan county, an island in Fujian province. On August 1, he was arrested for the murder of two children, who had died after eating rice porridge containing rat poison only six days earlier.

Traces of poison had been found on the door handle of the apartment rented by Nian next door. When interrogated by police, he confessed to the crime.

On Feburary 1, 2008, the Fuzhou Intermediary Court sentenced Nian to death with immediate execution, pending an appeal. He did so, retracted his confession, starting a legal ordeal that has yet to end. His lawyers say he had been tortured into admitting the crime and the evidence was insufficient for his sentence. 

"What Nian Bin described to us was what we call geshan daniu," said his lawyer Zhang Yansheng. The technique, sometimes mentioned in martial arts novels, is a method of administering beatings through objects such as bricks or, in this case, books by security officials to prevent open marks of torture.

Fujian police denied such allegations in court.