On March 13, 2005, the Henan Provincial Procuratorate dropped the indictment of Xu Jingxiang and found him innocent.
(Xu Jingxiang)
At this point, Xu Jingxiang, who had been wronged for 13 years, finally walked out of prison and bathed in warm sunshine, but for Xu Jingxiang, he did not have much joy.
By this time, his father and mother had died in the long wait, and his wife had left the house with her children.
Poor Xu Jingxiang wanted to cry without tears, and couldn't help but recall the Spring Festival that changed his life...
Become a suspect in a robbery
During the Lunar New Year in 1991, before the fireworks of the artillery had dissipated, more than a dozen burglary cases occurred in Yanghukou Township, Luyi County, Zhoukou City, Henan Province.
The sheer number of crimes and the proximity to themselves have left everyone in danger, fearing that the next victim will be their own home.
Faced with tremendous pressure from public opinion, the local police quickly organized a special case team to vigorously investigate the robbery.
However, in the 1990s, surveillance was not yet widespread, and prisoners were particularly picky in the middle of the night when they could not see their fingers, and the police could not find useful clues.
(Night in the Countryside)
Over time, this incident became a thorn in the hearts of the villagers, and no matter when everyone was silently guessing who was the thief.
At that time, Xu Jingxiang was also at home, and in his spare time, he also shuttled to his relatives' homes to drink and exchange feelings. Although he was also interested in theft, he did not pay much attention to it.
Because his home was not stolen, nor did he steal it himself. Therefore, Xu Jingxiang continued to live according to the order for the following year.
Until March 1992, Xu Jingxiang's days as calm as the waters of Lake Had twists and turns.
At that time, he was happily drinking with a friend from the township, Wei Guoliang.
Wei Guoliang was drinking and suddenly found that the green sweater vest on Xu Jingxiang's body was somewhat familiar.
(Green sweater)
His daughter-in-law's sister knitted him a green wool vest two days ago, exactly the same as Xu Jingxiang's. Moreover, there is a wrongly woven hairy leaf on the shoulder of his sweater, and there is also a wrongly woven leaf on Xu Jingxiang's sweater.
In ordinary times, such a thing can only be said to be very coincidental, but Wei Guoliang's sweater was returned to his wife and sister because it did not fit, and his wife and sister were the victims of the robbery, and she also happened to have this green sweater among the things she was robbed.
Therefore, seeing that the snatched green sweater appeared on Xu Jingxiang's body, Wei Guoliang inevitably felt that Xu Jingxiang was suspicious and immediately reported to the police.
Originally, Wei Guoliang thought that his actions were not wrong, after all, from the perspective of sweaters, Xu Jingxiang was indeed suspicious. But what he didn't know was that his phone call had disrupted the second half of Xu Jingxiang's life...
Jailed for wrongdoing
When Wei Guoliang reported to the police that Xu Jingxiang might be a suspect in the robbery, Xu Jingxiang did not know anything. He continued to work in the fields and take care of his family according to his previous habits until the police came to his door.
At that time, the police did not tell him what had happened, so they forcefully escorted him to the police car and took him back to the police station.
Xu Jingxiang sat in the interrogation room in fear, racking his brains to guess what crime he had committed. But if you think about it, you keep to yourself and have never broken the law!
So he could only keep stressing that he was not guilty and had been wronged. But for his statement, I did not expect the policemen sitting opposite to be dismissive.
They asked Xu Jingxiang to tell him about the robbery and told him to "confess leniently and resist strictly."
(Interrogation Room)
Xu Jingxiang was dumbfounded, and no matter how stupid he was, he guessed that he had been regarded as a criminal in the robbery, but the robbery had nothing to do with him. As a result, Xu Jingxiang once again strenuously denied to the police that he had participated in the crime.
But the green sweater, which looked exactly like the stolen sweater, was on him, and the police certainly didn't believe it.
Therefore, Xu Jingxiang hurriedly moved out of his friend Xu Motherland, saying that the green sweater was bought by two people at the market at the entrance of the village, and he could help him testify.
However, the interrogating police officers disagreed with this claim and still insisted that he "confess guilt". Moreover, in the process of interrogation, there was a high-intensity interrogation phenomenon in the police at that time, during which Xu Jingxiang was tortured!
But even so, Xu Jingxiang still did not confess. In order to dispel Xu Jingxiang's illusions, the police decided to go to Xu Jingxiang's home to find evidence!
In this way, several policemen rushed into Xu Jingxiang's home and rummaged around for things. Xu Jingxiang's wife is an ordinary rural woman, who can't read a single character, and in the face of this situation, she can only pull her three children to stand outside and nervously watch the people in the house.
At that time, the police rummaged through all the clothes in the house and took away a large part, including even the dress of the younger daughter. Although the police were not satisfied with the results of this search, Xu Jingxiang's family was a very ordinary poor family, and there was really no extra place to hide anything.
Despite this, the searching police pulled a tricycle full of things back to the police station.
(Tricycle)
Xu Jingxiang's wife looked at the messy room and felt overwhelmed, and she desperately hoped that her husband could come back early to preside over the situation. However, at this time, Xu Jingxiang was already involuntarily.
At that time, Xu Jingxiang, who was located in the interrogation room, still said that he had never participated in the burglary in the face of the police's questioning, and the police across from him listened to Xu Jingxiang's constant denial, and his expression gradually began to become impatient. After a night, several people stood in front of him with somber faces.
Xu Jingxiang quickly understood what these people wanted to do, because the stick immediately fell on him. From the day after entering the prison, Xu Jingxiang's screams did not stop.
The wrist and ankle bone were stomped on fiercely under the feet, and the hot oil generated after the burning of the plastic sheet dripped directly on the back and belly, Xu Jingxiang was covered with red marks, and his right foot was broken.
(drip wax oil)
Under this torture, after three days and three nights, Xu Jingxiang, who could not survive, was forced to "admit" that he was the murderer of the burglary.
He admitted that he and Liang Xiaolong, who had never known each other in fact, and his subordinates Green Dragon, Black Dragon, Qinglong and others conspired to plan more than a dozen robberies between 1991 and 1992.
The policemen heard the satisfactory answer, and their happiness was overflowing, and they immediately took the transcript and asked him to sign it.
However, after Xu Jingxiang eased up, he had the determination to fight, and he decisively overturned the sin he had confessed and continued to cry out for justice.
When the policemen saw him like this, they felt as if they had been teased, and directly doubled the previous torture on Xu Jingxiang.
(Torture to extract confessions)
Xu Jingxiang could not stand it again and "confessed" loosely, and the police took the record to ask him to sign, and he took the opportunity to rest and continue the struggle. The round was repeated three or four times, and finally the policemen had had enough and grabbed his hand and pressed it directly on the torture transcript.
In this way, on April 13, 1992, the serial burglary case in Luyi County was broken with the confession of "suspect" Xu Jingxiang, and soon after, Luyi County approved the arrest of the suspect.
In this way, Xu Jingxiang's robbery charge is basically solid...
Suspicion of the Inspector II
After the serial burglary case was solved, according to the regulations, the case was handed over to Li Chuangui, a second-level police inspector, for handling.
Li Chuangui felt very confused after reading the materials presented by the police station, the accomplices in this case were not caught, and there was only one signature on more than a dozen transcripts.
Years of experience in handling cases made him realize that there was something wrong with it, so Li Chuangui finally decided to personally go to the detention center himself.
After arriving at the detention center, things did not go as expected. As soon as the two met, Xu Jingxiang cried out for wrongs, and he swore to Li Chuangui that he had been tortured to extract a confession, that his handprints were forced to press, and that if he was really a robber, he would admit it even if he was shot.
Li Chuangui looked at Xu Jingxiang and knew how difficult it was to verify such a thing, so he asked the leaders for a grace of time, first to try Xu Jingxiang's case of robbing Li Suzhen by pretending to be a policeman, and then postponing the trial of the burglary case.
Subsequently, the police sent Xu Jingxiang's case to the procuratorate for prosecution, and the procuratorate also believed that the evidence in the robbery of Li Suzhen was insufficient, and returned the case to the police station for supplementary evidence.
(Luyi County Procuratorate)
Since then, Xu Jingxiang's case has returned to the cycle of investigation, prosecution, return, and investigation.
After a while, though, a new turnaround took place.
At the end of 1992, Xu Jingxiang confessed to being a "criminal accomplice" Liang Xiaolong in Shandong province and arrested by local police.
When the police asked him about Xu Jingxiang's theft, Liang Xiaolong replied that he had never known Xu Jingxiang, let alone the Green Dragon, the Green Dragon and the Black Dragon.
After investigation, Liang Xiaolong had been working in Shandong during the crime and had an alibi.
In this way, Xu Jingxiang's confession is full of loopholes, and according to the mainland's practice of never being suspected of guilt, he will not necessarily be imprisoned.
However, in fact, for the next year or so, Xu Jingxiang stayed in the detention center. And except for the fact that sometimes the court questioned his suspicions because of insufficient evidence, Most of the time Xu Jingxiang was identified as a criminal.
And since the criminal was "determined" to be Xu Jingxiang, the serial robbery case seems to have come to a perfect end. For this reason, the police officers who handled the case also received commendations.
Since then, the days have become calmer day by day, and the serial robbery case has gradually drifted away from people's sight. But just as everyone was fading away from the incident, in July 1993, a sudden anonymous report letter set off a dispute...
Fraud cases lead to robberies
In July 1993, someone reported that Li Chuangui, a second-level police inspector, had illegally viewed Xu Jingxiang's relevant materials during the trial of the robbery case, and was suspected of illegally accepting bribes and favoritism.
The matter involved major cases and public officials, and the problem was very serious, and the Luyi Procuratorate immediately began to investigate and collect evidence.
In November of the same year, the Luyi County Procuratorate finally decided to arrest Li Chuangui and indict him on suspicion of favoritism and fraud.
The case was referred to the luyi county court, which, after hearing all the information, felt that the matter was somewhat inappropriate. The existing evidence is completely unable to prove that Li Chuangui and Xu Jingxiang had any illegal transactions.
(Bribery)
Therefore, the Luyi County Court acquitted Li Chuangui.
However, the Luyi County Procuratorate did not seem to be satisfied with such a result, and not long after hearing the verdict of the acquittal, it filed a protest and asked the county court to retry Li Chuangui's fraud case.
The county court had no choice but to restart the trial procedure. After that, the search for evidence in the fraud case continued for more than a year, and the case was transferred from the original county court to the Zhoukou City Intermediate Court.
On August 28, 1995, after a rigorous and meticulous review, the Municipal Intermediate Court still acquitted Li Chuangui.
It is said that two different court trials have held that the fraud case is not established, so the matter should end here. However, after two years, the Zhoukou Branch of the Henan Procuratorate once again raised a defense with the Henan Provincial Procuratorate.
In October 1997, the case was transferred from Zhoukou to Zhengzhou, and jiang Hansheng, the prosecutor in charge of the case, got all the information.
(Jiang Hansheng)
Jiang Hansheng went through the fraud case from front to back, and keenly realized that this case was inextricably linked to Xu Jingxiang's case, and if he wanted to end the fraud case, he had to deal with the burglary robbery case first.
Coincidentally, Jiang Hansheng discovered that in early 1997, Xu Jingxiang, a suspect in the burglary case, wrote a sincere reply to the judge.
Xu Jingxiang said that he was completely wronged, that he was severely tortured in prison, and that all the signatures and handprints were made by the police according to his hands.
He also said that during the time of the serial robbery, he and his friends were working in Shandong, and the boss could testify, and he could never have run home across five hundred kilometers overnight to commit the crime.
(Shandong)
As for the sweater with green leaves, he bought it with his fellow villager Xu Motherland at a stall at the mouth of the village, and Xu Motherland can also testify.
In addition to citing evidence, Xu Jingxiang also talked about his family in the defense book. His father fell seriously ill in the year he was imprisoned and died. The mother is old and has no son to support. In addition to work, the wife also has to take care of a woman, two boys and three children.
Xu Jingxiang pleaded with the judge, and he washed his face with tears every day in prison, just to get a fair and just verdict.
In this case, on February 18, 1997, the serial burglary case was heard at the Luyi County Court. In court, Xu Jingxiang's defense lawyer pointed out that the evidence in this case was insufficient and there were problems with the handling process.
(Luyi County Court)
Before the accomplices were arrested, Xu Jingxiang was already in prison, and later the accomplices said that they did not know Xu Jingxiang at all, and the police did not release Xu Jingxiang.
Defense lawyers have made great efforts for such a case with many loopholes, but unfortunately they are still unable to return to heaven. A week later, the court found Xu Jingxiang guilty of robbery and subjected him to sixteen years in prison.
But Jiang Hansheng, the prosecutor who handled the case, did not give up. In October 1997, Jiang Hansheng and his colleagues drove to Shanxi.
There, they found Xu Motherland. After a simple communication, Xu Guoguo confirmed that the green sweater with leaves on his shoulder was indeed bought by him and Xu Jingxiang at the market at the head of the village.
Jiang Hansheng got the exact answer and drove to Luyi County, Zhoukou to meet Xu Jingxiang's family. What is unbearable is that xu Jingxiang's father died after he left home, and in the long days that followed, his mother also left.
(Left Jiang Hansheng in Xu Jingxiang's home)
Therefore, Jiang Hansheng only saw Xu Jingxiang's wife. When the wife saw a stranger suddenly come up to talk, she was frightened and hid. After Jiang Hansheng's incessant explanation, the atmosphere eased slightly.
Xu Jingxiang's wife said that the reason why she was so afraid of outsiders was because in the years when Xu Jingxiang first entered, she had asked for people from the police station several times.
As soon as the police station heard that she was Xu Jingxiang's wife, they punched and kicked her, and it was common for her hair to be pulled off, and the most cruel thing was that those people deliberately detained her and prevented her from returning home to breastfeed her four-month-old child.
The wife was unbearable and finally chose to stay away from the police station and live away from the policemen. However, she said that she believed that her husband Xu Jingxiang would not do such a thing, and even if he was sentenced for more than ten years, she would always wait for him to return.
After Jiang Hansheng heard these touching news, he strengthened his determination to let the truth come to light. Over the next two years, he visited many surrounding provinces and cities, looking for evidence related to the incident!
Settle the grievances
After Jiang Hansheng used the evidence he found to prove Li Chuangui's innocence, he discussed Xu Jingxiang's burglary with the henan procuratorate's committee.
(Prosecutors)
After three meetings, the committee members unanimously held that there were many doubts in Xu Jingxiang's case and that it was necessary to retry and re-sentence. The Committee therefore requested the Zhoukou Procuratorate to protest again in order to re-enter the review process.
In May 2001, the Zhoukou Procuratorate filed a protest and asked the Luyi County Court to retry the judgment of Xu Jingxiang's case, and the Luyi County Court did the same.
Later, the Luyi County Court prepared a year to sort out the case. Originally, Jiang Hansheng and others thought that the evidence was sufficient this time, and Xu Jingxiang could finally get a notarized judgment, but who knew that on April 16, 2002, the Luyi County Court once again announced that the original judgment was upheld.
The Henan Provincial Procuratorate did not believe that such an outcome would result and once again asked the Zhoukou City Procuratorate to protest.
On March 25, 2003, the Zhoukou Intermediate People's Court held a hearing and once again announced that Xu Jingxiang's serial burglary case was upheld.
The Henan Provincial Procuratorate was unable to file a protest with the Henan Provincial High Court on its own. Because they have legitimate reasons and sufficient evidence to prove that Xu Jingxiang is innocent!
At this time, the attention of public opinion and the progress of the case is constantly improving, but Xu Jingxiang, who is in prison, still does not know anything.
Due to the limited external information available to him, he only knew that the Henan Provincial Procuratorate had raised a defense. Nevertheless, this has made him very happy, and the hope of peace has risen in his heart.
On June 16, 2004, the long-awaited day finally arrived. The Henan Provincial High Court openly tried Xu Jingxiang's case.
(Henan Provincial High Court)
After his lawyers were methodical and reasonable, there was a loose debate, and the solid and reliable evidence provided by procurator Jiang Hansheng, in the end, the case finally took a turn for the better.
In December 2004, the Henan Provincial High Court acquitted Xu Jingxiang.
On March 13, 2005, the Henan Provincial Procuratorate asked the Luyi Procuratorate to withdraw the indictment.
On March 15, 2005, the Luyi Procuratorate withdrew the case. On the same day, Xu Jingxiang finally walked out of the prison gate and wept bitterly to thank the procurator and the procuratorate for their help.
(Tearful Xu Jingxiang)
At this time, Xu Jingxiang was happy, because after 13 years, he was finally acquitted; and Xu Jingxiang at this time was also painful, because he waited too long for this day, and after 15 days he could be "released after completing his sentence"!
After that, Xu Jingxiang returned to his hometown and looked up, and the house had been somewhat dilapidated because it had not been inhabited for many years. His father and mother had died, and his wife had been forced to leave with her children for a long time.
Although the judge told him that he could apply for state compensation, after he really got more than half a million yuan in compensation, Xu Jingxiang's heart was still bitter. Because he knows better than anyone that even ten times more money than this cannot be exchanged for his deceased parents and more than ten years of time!
epilogue:
As we all know, the impact of unjust, false and wrongly decided cases is enormous, it not only tramples on the personality of the victim, but also makes them waste time in prison, and it is also a question of the credibility of the judiciary.
Therefore, in recent years, in order to prevent the recurrence of this situation, the state has been constantly carrying out judicial reforms. Although there will be people who will be wronged in the process, perhaps this is the price of progress!