Our reporter Lai Xing, Gao Haoliang, Cheng Di, Min Zuntao
Seeing each other again after nearly 27 years, the mother and son stood by for a long time, not daring to recognize each other for a while.
After hesitating for a while, Zhang Yuhuan and her 83-year-old mother hugged tightly. He said that from the age of 26 to 53, the wait of more than 9,000 days is too long.
On August 4 this year, the Jiangxi Provincial Higher People’s Court ruled: “The evidence on which the original trial was based did not meet the reliable and sufficient statutory standard of proof. The fact that Zhang Yuhuan was found guilty of intentional homicide was unclear and the evidence was insufficient. According to the principle, Zhang Yuhuan cannot be found guilty...This judgment is the final judgment."
Following this verdict, Zhang Yuhuan returned to his hometown, Zhangjia Village, Huangling Township, Jinxian County, Jiangxi Province, where he had been away for nearly 27 years, and met his lingering family.
On August 6, Zhang Yuhuan and his son were learning to use a smartphone to talk. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Hu Chenhuan
Three times sentenced to death with a suspended sentence
On October 24, 1993, the news of the disappearance of the two boys broke the calm in Zhangjia Village. The next day, the remains of the children were found in a reservoir near the village.
The two boys killed were only 6 and 4 years old. The police’s forensic medical certificate showed that they were all thrown into the water after their deaths. The older boy was strangled by a rope and suffocated before the neck. One suffocated his neck and died.
The 26-year-old Zhang Yuhuan was found to be a “suspect of murder” based on two confessions of guilt, a sack, a hemp rope and two wounds.
The police found that a sack extracted at the scene where the body was thrown and the overalls worn by Zhang Yuhuan were all jute fibers. Zhang Yuhuan’s left and right hands each had a scar that was identified as “hand-made by grasping”, which was suspected to be caused by the boy’s struggle when he was killed.
On January 26, 1995, the Nanchang City Intermediate People's Court issued a judgment of first instance and sentenced Zhang Yuhuan to death with a two-year reprieve and deprived of political rights for life.
After the verdict was pronounced in the first instance, Zhang Yuhuan appealed to the Jiangxi Higher People's Court. The Jiangxi Higher People's Court revoked the original judgment and sent it back for retrial. After a retrial, the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court sentenced Zhang Yuhuan to death on November 7, 2001 for intentional homicide, with a two-year reprieve and deprivation of political rights for life. Subsequently, Zhang Yuhuan appealed again to Jiangxi Higher Court. But this time, the Jiangxi High Court rejected the appeal and upheld and approved the original verdict.
The court found that Zhang Yuhuan caused the death of a 6-year-old boy due to some small frictions in life, and strangled the 4-year-old boy to death, put the body in a sack and threw the body into the reservoir.
Zhang Yuhuan’s defense lawyer Shang Manqing pointed out that as a major death penalty case, Zhang Yuhuan had legal aid lawyers at the first instance, but in the final criminal ruling that was extremely important to Zhang Yuhuan in 2001, no lawyers defended him. This is against procedural justice.
Hundreds of appeal letters
For Zhang Yuhuan's family, 1993 was not peaceful. It was also that year when his father died.
In the early morning of August 5, 2020, Zhang Yuhuan and his family went up the mountain to visit his father's grave.
"Dad, I'm back, I'm back innocently." Zhang Yuhuan knelt in front of the tombstone and knocked his head a few times, feeling sad, "I want to raise my son and don't wait for a kiss."
The persistence of his innocence, the guilt of his parents, wives and children, and the desire to reunite with his family have made Zhang Yuhuan insist on writing appeal letters for more than 20 years, with a total of four to five hundred letters.
"A letter of complaint usually requires seven or eight sheets of paper, and three copies must be sent to different departments." Zhang Yuhuan's eyesight declined sharply because of excessive eye use and other reasons.
The long wait did not shake the faith of Zhang Yuhuan and his family.
Zhang Yuhuan’s eldest brother, Zhang Minqiang, firmly believes that his younger brother is not a murderer. He once told his brother that if you did it, you should die, "He said he didn't, I believe him."
I believe that he has only a junior high school education and has since embarked on a long road to redress for his brother. For more than 20 years, he has gone to court every month, at most six times a month.
"His hair was almost all white because of my business, and three or four hundred appeal letters were written." Zhang Yuhuan held his brother's hand tightly. This kind of brotherhood touched a judge deeply. Zhang Yuhuan said, you have a great brother.
Also running for Zhang Yuhuan is his ex-wife Song Xiaonv. That year, after Zhang Yuhuan was taken away by the police, Song Xiaonv was heartbroken. She has not given up on running for Zhang Yuhuan for many years.
But Song Xiaonv knew that it was difficult to feed her two children on her own sick body, and she was forced to remarry. Fortunately, the current husband has promised to take good care of the three mothers and sons. Over the years, he has been silently supporting his wife to help Zhang Yuhuan in redress.
"Little girl, will always be my relative." Zhang Yuhuan understood her choice, and he was grateful for the trust of his ex-wife and the care he had always taken to his mother.
After Zhang Yuhuan was released from prison, Song Xiaonv gave him a smart phone in the hope that he can record more of his life and leave more beautiful memories in life.
The court explained the three major reasons for changing the sentence
After Zhang Yuhuan submitted a criminal complaint to the Jiangxi Higher People's Court on August 22, 2017, the Jiangxi Higher People's Court made a retrial decision on March 1, 2019, and a public hearing was held on July 9, 2020.
During the retrial process, Zhang Yuhuan and his defense attorney proposed that Zhang Yuhuan’s guilty confession was caused by torture, the material evidence in the case could not be related to the victim or the criminal facts, there were contradictions between the main evidence, and the original trial was to protect the defendant’s right to defense, etc. Violation of legal proceedings, affecting fair trial, etc.
In the retrial judgment, the Jiangxi Provincial Higher People's Court held that the facts that Zhang Yuhuan committed in the original trial were unclear and the evidence was insufficient. According to the principle of "no suspected crime", Zhang Yuhuan cannot be found guilty. The Jiangxi Provincial Higher People's Court listed the reasons for changing Zhang Yuhuan's innocence:
First, the sacks and hemp ropes used as tools for the crime were found to be unrelated to the case or Zhang Yuhuan; the original trial found that the victim scratched the back of Zhang Yuhuan’s hand based on the human injury inspection certificate, which can only prove that scratches can be formed by hand scratching, but not Exclusivity
Second, at the first crime scene identified by the original trial, the public security organs did not find or extract any evidence related to the case during the on-site investigation;
Third, Zhang Yuhuan's two guilty confessions had obvious contradictions in the location of the murder, the tools of the crime, and the process of committing the crime. The truthfulness of the confession is doubtful and cannot be used as a basis for conviction according to law;
The presiding judge Tian Ganlin stated that in this case, apart from Zhang Yuhuan’s guilty confession, there is no direct evidence to prove that Zhang Yuhuan committed a criminal act, and indirect evidence cannot form a complete chain.
After the verdict was announced in the retrial on August 4, the relevant person in charge of the Jiangxi Provincial Higher People's Court apologized to Zhang Yuhuan on behalf of the court and informed him of the right to apply for state compensation.
"I accept the apology from the relevant department and will entrust a lawyer to apply for the initiation of state compensation and accountability procedures for related personnel. I hope that this tragedy will not repeat itself." Zhang Yuhuan said.