A Chinese court granted a man who spent more than 11 years behind bars after a false murder conviction 1.27 million yuan (200,000 U.S. dollars) in state compensation on Monday.
Citing insufficient evidence, the Xiangtan Intermediate People's Court in central China's Hunan Province overturned the guilty verdict against Zeng Aiyun, a former graduate student of engineering at Xiangtan University, in July.
Zeng was convicted in 2004 of murdering his graduate school classmate Zhou Yuheng.
Zeng had been sentenced to death three times by the same court in 2004, 2005 and 2010. The Supreme People's Court rejected the verdicts and ordered a retrial.
Chen Huazhang, also the victim's classmate, was found to be the real killer. Chen poisoned Zhou with diazepam on Oct. 27, 2003 as he was jealous of the attention Zhou enjoyed from their mentor. Chen deliberately laid a false trail and imputed the murder to Zeng, who was in love with the victim's ex-girlfriend.
Chen and Zeng were both arrested on Nov. 11, 2003. Zeng was sentenced to death while Chen received life imprisonment.
Chen was still sentenced to life imprisonment during the retrial and fined 178,143 yuan as compensation to the victim's family.
Based on the verdict of not guilty, Zeng applied for state compensation on Nov. 12 to the local court, which decided to pay him 1,272,928.65 yuan.