Five police officers in a rural county in central China's Henan Province have been jailed for torturing a farmer into admitting murder and causing him to spend 11 years in jail.

Zhao Zuohai, a farmer in Zhecheng County, was acquitted last May after the man he was convicted of killing turned up alive.

Prosecutors said Zhao had been tortured for 33 days before he made his confession. He was beaten with a club and had a pistol put in his mouth.

The officers would not let him sleep and set off firecrackers over his head.

After his release from prison, six officers, who had all been promoted for "cracking" the murder case in 1999, were investigated and indicted.

Longting District People's Court in Kaifeng City sentenced Wang Songlin and Guo Shouhai to two years in prison and imposed jail terms of 12 to 18 months on Ding Zhongqiu, Luo Mingzhu, and Zhou Minghan.

Si Chongxing, the former police squad deputy chief in Zhecheng County, was found not guilty.

The officers have appealed the court ruling and a second trial is being held at Kaifeng Intermediate People's Court.

In May 1999, police dug out a headless body from a well. They believed the man to be Zhao Zhenxiang, who had gone missing in October 1997 after a fight with Zhao Zuohai over a woman they were both romantically linked to.

Zhao Zuohai was found guilty and sentenced to death based on his confession and a DNA test which was said to have confirmed that the body was Zhao Zhenxiang's. Later, his jail term was commuted to 29 years.

While Zhao Zuohai was in Henan's No. 1 Prison, his wife remarried and three of his four children were adopted by strangers.

In fact, it was Zhao Zhenxiang who almost killed Zhao Zuohai. In the brawl he brandished a knife and cut Zhao Zuohai on the head. He fled the village fearing he had killed Zhao Zuohai. He returned on April 30, 2010.

Zhao Zuohai was awarded 650,000 yuan (US$102,238) in compensation for his wrongful conviction and jail.

He has already spent a considerable part of it on his eldest son's marriage.

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