Chinese man gets US$670,000 payout after he was wrongfully jailed for 25 years
- Compensation package includes record US$277,000 for ‘mental harm’ caused
- Liu Zhonglin, now 50, was exonerated in April over the murder of an 18-year-old woman. He had maintained his innocence throughout his imprisonment
A Chinese man who was wrongfully jailed for a murder he did not commit has been awarded state compensation of 4.6 million yuan (US$670,000) – including a record 1.9 million yuan for “mental harm” caused and 2.5 million yuan for “loss of personal liberty”.
Liu Zhonglin, who is now 50, was granted the compensation payout by the Liaoyuan Intermediate People’s Court on Monday, news site Thepaper.cn reported.
Liu was arrested in October 1990, when he was 22, over the murder of an 18-year-old woman whose body was found in a river at Huimin village in Dongliao county, Jilin, according to court documents.
He was found guilty of killing the woman, Zheng Dianrong, and given a suspended death sentence in 1994 that was later commuted to life in prison. Throughout his jail term, Liu had maintained his innocence.
Liu was freed in January 2016 after a successful retrial in the Jilin High People’s Court that started in 2012. He was finally acquitted in April 2018 on the grounds of “insufficient evidence”.