THE family of a man who was executed after being wrongly convicted of murder and rape submitted an application for more than US$2 million in State compensation to a Hebei court yesterday.

    Nie Shubin was 21 when he was executed after being found guilty in 1995 of the rape and murder of a woman on the outskirts of the Hebei provincial capital, Shijiazhuang.

    The application was handed in to the Higher People’s Court of Hebei Province in North China.

    Earlier this month, the Supreme People’s Court, China’s top court, acquitted Nie, ruling that the previous conviction was based on insufficient evidence and unclear facts.

    The family is asking for compensation of 13.91 million yuan (more than US$2 million) including 12 million yuan for “mental anguish,” over 1.26 million yuan for Nie’s death and funeral expenses, as well as 600,000 yuan that the family spent on their efforts to overturn the verdict.

    The family also requested that those who made the initial wrong conviction send an apology letter to them and apologize in the media.

    Nie’s case re-emerged in 2005 when another man, Wang Shujin, confessed to the crimes Nie was convicted of.

    Wang, 49, was given a death sentence in unconnected rape and murder cases.

    Nie’s family has spent two decades in campaigning to clear Nie’s name.

    In December 2014, the Supreme People’s Court assigned the higher court of Shandong Province to review the case, which found there were too many questions about the previous trial to uphold the conviction.

    The Supreme People’s Court decided to retry the case in June 2016. The court acquitted Nie on Dec. 2, ruling the facts used in the trial were “unclear and the evidence insufficient.”

    (Xinhua)