Beijing News, 2009-05-25
The Xingtai (Hebei Province) Intermediate Court retried Yan Fufeng on charges of intentional homicide in the August 2002 death of Li Fengqin in a case the local police chief continues to call “ironclad.” The same court has found Yan guilty of the same charges three times before and sentenced him to death each time, but three times higher courts—the Hebei High Court twice and the Supreme People's Court once—ordered the case retried due to “insufficient evidence.” Yan reportedly confessed the murder to police but retracted it in court, claiming the confession was extracted under torture. His defense lawyers raised many other doubts about the police investigation: from procedural technicalities—only one police officer delivered the suspected murder weapon to the crime lab, but regulations require two—to serious failures to obtain and analyze evidence—phone records related to Yan's alleged blackmail call were never acquired, DNA tests were never performed on the blood stains on the murder weapon.
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