Chinese man compensated for 8 years wrongful custody

A man acquitted after spending eight years in prison in east China's Fujian province has received 1.14 million yuan ($186,000) of compensation from the state.

The Intermediate People's Court of Fuzhou City on Sunday ruled that Nian Bin, 39, should be paid 589,000 yuan for loss of personal freedom and another 550,000 yuan for mental suffering.

In August 2014, the Higher People's Court of Fujian Province overturned grocery shop owner Nian Bin's 2008 conviction for murder, citing insufficient evidence. This was the final ruling after three previous guilty verdicts and subsequent appeals.

In December last year, Nian asked the court for 15 million yuan in compensation including medical expenses, living allowances for his son and his sister's cost of accommodation, transportation and attorneys during the past eight years.

The court only supported his claim for the loss of freedom and mental suffering according to the state compensation law, an official with the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court told Xinhua.

The court did not do anything that harmed Nian's health, he added.

Nian suffered from Grade Eight disability due to wearing handcuffs and shackles, according to earlier media reports. China has a ten-grade occupational injury assessment system with grade one the most serious.

On the evening of July 27, 2006, four people in Fuzhou's Pingtan county, three of them children, fell ill while having supper. Two of the children died. Police believed their neighbor Nian Bin, then 30, was responsible because he was not on good terms with the victims' family.

The first verdict came in February 2008, when the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court sentenced Nian to death. The provincial Higher People's Court upheld the verdict in June 2009 after Nian's appeal.

The Supreme People's Court did not approve the death sentence and revoked the second trial verdict in April 2010. Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court gave Nian a death sentence at a third trial in November 2011. Nian appealed again and was acquitted in August 2014.

In December, a court in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region ruled that the parents of a man who was wrongly convicted and executed in 1996 should receive state compensation of more than two million yuan.