Chinese man gets US$130,000 compensation after spending eight years in jail for crime he didn’t commit
Zhang Jun was sentenced to 20 years after being wrongfully identified as member of gang behind double robbery
A Chinese man who spent almost eight years in prison for a crime he did not commit has been awarded 880,000 yuan (US$130,000) in compensation, according to a local newspaper report.
Zhang Jun was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in 2008 for what the court ruled at the time was his role in two robberies in Daqing, Heilongjiang province, The Beijing News reported on Thursday.
Despite arguing at his initial trial that he had never even been to the north China city, Zhang was identified as a member of a four-man gang charged with robbing two women of about 90,000 yuan.
Prosecutors said Zhang, who had a criminal record for an earlier conviction for theft, had been identified by other members of the gang.
The court rejected Zhang’s alibi, and later sentenced each of the three people who provided it – his father and two friends – to a year in prison.
They too were later released after their sentences were also quashed, the report said.