In the depths of winter, in Zibo, Shandong, the sky is fluttering with snowflakes, and two friends who have been wronged for many years are awarded zhaoxue.
At 9:35 a.m. on January 13, at the north gate of the Zibo Intermediate Court, after more than half an hour of pronouncing the verdict, Wang Guangchao, who had dark skin, walked out with a backpack. Subsequently, several lawyers in formal clothes slowly walked out, and one of them shouted "not guilty."
About a minute later, Zhang Zhichao, who was wearing a prison uniform on his lower body and a cotton jacket on his upper body, came out, and he first expressed his gratitude to the media and the lawyer. Then, Zhang Zhichao found Wang Guangchao, and the two former classmates hugged each other deeply.
Zhang Zhichao hugged Wang Guangchao. This article is all the picture of the surging news reporter Zhang Jiaran
On February 11, 2005, a female body was found in a boys' toilet at the Linshu County No. 2 Middle School branch in Linyi. After investigation, the police identified Zhang Zhichao, then a 16-year-old senior high school student at Linshu No. 2 Middle School, as a suspect. In March 2006, the Linyi Intermediate People's Court rendered a first-instance judgment, finding Zhang Zhichao guilty of rape and sentencing him to life imprisonment, while his classmate Wang Guangchao was sentenced to 3 years in prison with a 3-year suspended sentence for "false testimony and concealment."
Zhang Zhichao has been in criminal detention for nearly 15 years since he was detained on February 13, 2005, and Wang Guangchao has not been able to continue his studies in high school, and both have now been acquitted.
Zhang Zhichao (third from right) and Wang Guangchao (second from left) take a group photo with their families and lawyers.
Live again
In an interview with the surging news (www.thepaper.cn), Zhang Zhichao said that after hearing the result of innocence, he was very emotional, and so many years of suffering ended through these two words. Zhang Zhichao's lawyer, Wang Dianxue, noticed that Zhang Zhichao was crying in court.
Recalling his feelings in prison, Zhang Zhichao said bluntly, "Every time I was said to be a rapist in prison, I was the most intolerable, I learned a lot of legal knowledge in it, and realized that I could not accept the charges that did not belong to me, so I finally chose to appeal." After being imprisoned, he has not slept well, and in recent times, he has been difficult to sleep all night. Everyone in prison was given a calendar book, and he counted every day, hoping to get out of prison as soon as possible.
When Zhang Zhichao was in prison, his mother had to visit him every month. Zhang Zhichao's mother told The Paper, "Every day after he was imprisoned, he had a difficult time, but we believe in the fairness and justice of the law." At the opening of the trial, it was also said that there is an interest in applying for state compensation, and we also have this plan, but we have not yet started to operate. ”
While Zhang Zhichao was serving his sentence, his father, grandfather, grandmother, and grandmother all died. He said to himself, "Over the years, my family has suffered a lot of grievances, and I have hated and hated those who hurt me before, but my mother told me that I can't always live with hatred, and my life will be very long in the future, and it will be very painful to carry hatred, so I put it down." ”
And his classmate Wang Guangchao is the same - he is glad that the case has now come to an end, but his life has also been changed, originally planned to enter the university, he drove a big truck.
Zhang Zhichao hopes to reunite with his family first, and then go to the grave of the elderly, and also plans to reorganize himself, learn some technology, and reintegrate into this society as soon as possible.
Flaws in handling cases
While being happy for Zhang Zhichao and Wang Guangchao, we should also see the problems that existed in the previous case handling process.
The shandong provincial high court's retrial judgment stated that there were obvious flaws in the case handling procedures during the investigation stage, and the location and time of several interrogations did not conform to the law. For example, zhang Zhichao's first interrogation was summoned at 1 a.m. on February 12, 2005, lifted at 1 p.m. on the same day, and detained at 6 p.m. the next day. However, Zhang Zhichao's first interrogation record was formed between 8:30 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. on the 13th, violating article 92 of the Criminal Procedure Law that "the maximum duration of summons and custodial summons shall not exceed 12 hours, and criminal suspects shall not be detained in disguised form in the form of continuous summonses or custodial summonses."
At the same time, Zhang Zhichao was only 16 years old at the time of the incident, but no parents, guardians or teachers were present during the four interrogations, which violated article 182 of the 1998 Provisions of the Ministry of Public Security on the Procedures for Handling Criminal Cases by Public Security Organs, which stipulates that "when interrogating a juvenile criminal suspect, except in cases where the investigation is obstructed or cannot be notified, the parents, guardians or teachers shall be notified."
In addition, the defenders of Zhang Zhichao and Wang Guangchao both pointed out that during the investigation stage, the police used torture to extract confessions. In this regard, after investigation and verification by the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate, the four investigators in that year all denied it, and Zhang Zhichao's physical examination form when he entered the detention center showed that he had no injuries. During an investigation into the personnel who were in the same cell as Zhang Zhichao at the Linshu County Detention Center, someone confirmed that Zhang Zhichao was injured.
However, the Shandong Provincial High Court ultimately held that, according to the current evidence, it was not enough to prove that the investigation organs had extorted confessions by torture, so the lawyer's defense opinion was not accepted.