CRI听力:Higher Court Reviews Controversial Rape and Murder Case

The five judges tasked with reviewing the case of Nie Shubin have already met with his family and his two attorneys.

The attorneys have submitted a formal application to have Nie's case files reviewed.

21-year old Nie Shubin was executed in 1995 for the rape and murder of a woman in Hebei's provincial capital Shijiazhuang.

But 10-years after the execution, another suspect in three separate rape and murder cases, confessed to raping and killing the woman Nie was convicted of doing the same to in Shijiazhuang.

However, a court in Hebei determined the other suspect's confession wasn't credible enough, meaning Nie's conviction stands.

But amid the dramatic turn of events over the past few weeks involving the case of the young man from Inner Mongolia, who was wrongly-convicted and executed around the same time as Nie Shubin, the judges in Shandong have taken up a review of the case.

Nie's mother claims his son was beaten into a confession on his sixth day in jail.

Nie was eventually convicted on the back of that confession.

Seven months after he was first detained, Nie was executed, without his parents being notified.

Zhang Qingsong, a lawyer from Beijing-based Shangquan Law Firm says an open judicial procedure is in need to provide a conclusion to the case.

"Nie Shubin's case and the previous case of Huugjilt have drawn extensive media coverage. The public generally think that both men are innocent. But public opinion should have no interference with whether these men are actually innocent. In cases like these, we need open and transparent judicial procedures. An open court is needed and all facts need to be put on the table, so that the public can get a clear picture on why the verdict has been made."

Earlier this month, a Chinese court announced that Huugjilt, a teenager from Inner Mongolia, was wrongly executed for rape-murder in a case dating back to 1996.

He was executed just two months after being found guilty.

In overturning the ruling in that case, the courts have since determined there was undue pressure at the time across the whole of China 20-years ago for both police and prosecutors to get quick convictions and expedite cases through the system.

For CRI, I'm Wang Wei.