Farmer released after serving ten years for murder as ‘victim’ turns up alive (China)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7121815.ece">Farmer released after serving ten years for murder as ‘victim’ turns up alive

A Chinese farmer who served ten years of a 29-year sentence for murder has been released after the man he was supposed to have killed, and then beheaded, turned up alive in their home village in central China.

Zhao Zhensheng disappeared after a furious fight with Zhao Zuohai in 1999. After Zhao Zhensheng was reported missing and a headless body was discovered in a village well, the local police put two and two together and arrested his rival. The two men are not related.

The sister of the jailed man said that he had only confessed to the crime after police torture — a not uncommon practice in China as police try to solve a crime and keep their record looking good. She said: “My brother told me he was really treated unjustly.” She said that he had even showed her a scar on his forehead where police had hit him with a gun.

After his arrest, his wife also said that she had been tortured and finally confessed that plastic bags found around the headless body had come from her home......