A man who served 11 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murdering his wife was officially cleared yesterday, walking free from Jingshan County People's Court – the same body that sentenced him to a 15-year jail term in 1998 – as over 2,000 local residents cheered.

"Police and other law enforcers made the errors," 39-year-old She Xianglin told China Daily, "I believe the law will punish them and give me a just result."

The original conviction came based on a confession which She said was extracted under police torture and the misidentification of a still-unknown woman's body.

"The provincial Hubei government has sent a team of police, procurators and high people's court officials to investigate the case," a spokesperson for the Jingmen government, which administrates Jingshan County, said yesterday.

The miscarriage of justice only came to light when She's wife, Zhang Zaiyu, resurfaced late last month after being thought missing for 11 years.

This was despite at least five letters from Zhang to her brother over the last two years, which he said he didn't report to police because he thought they were a hoax.

Zhang disappeared in January 1994 from Yanmenkou Township, and 3 months later a body was found in a pond that her relatives positively identified.

Local police arrested She for murder in April 1994, although questions had been raised about discrepancies between the features and clothes of the body and Zhang. Confirmation through DNA testing had not been attempted.

Zhang Chengmao, She's lawyer, said yesterday he would seek State compensation "but we have not reached a figure yet."

When asked about compensation She said, "My mother, who died from the stress of continually appealing, cannot be bought. Eleven years of freedom cannot be bought. Schooling of my daughter that was stopped because of poverty cannot be bought," he said.

As for his wife, the man said he did not hate her at all. "If she had not reappeared, maybe I would have been wronged for life," he said.

He also said he did not plan to sue Zhang for bigamy, though she had remarried in Shandong Province without divorcing him.

(China Daily April 14, 2005)