(CNN) - A Chinese man convicted of murdering two children had his sentence revoked after serving 27 years in prison, in what has been described as one of the longest-standing court mistakes in recent Chinese history.
Zhang Yuhuan, 53, was released on Tuesday after the Supreme People's Court of eastern Jiangxi province found him "innocent" due to lack of sufficient evidence, the Chinese state newspaper Global Times reported.
The result came after a long legal battle to overturn the conviction, highlighting ongoing problems within China's legal system.
In 1993, two children were found dead in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, according to the report. Police suspected that the children's neighbor, Zhang, had killed them.
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In 1995, Zhang was sentenced to death with a two-year suspension, which means that his death sentence would be commuted to life in prison if he did not commit any other crime within a two-year period, the state newspaper China Daily reported.
But Zhang appealed to a higher court, arguing that he was not the killer, and claimed that he had been tortured by police during interrogation, according to the report.
The higher court ordered a new trial, but this was not held until November 2001, China Daily reported. The intermediate court upheld the original sentence and a subsequent appeal was rejected.
Zhang and his family continued to insist that he was innocent, and finally in March last year, the Jiangxi Supreme People's Court reopened the case, according to the report. On Tuesday he was found not guilty.
"After reviewing the materials, we have found that there is no direct evidence that can prove Zhang's conviction. So we accepted the prosecutors suggestion and found Zhang not guilty, "said Judge Tian Ganlin.
Zhang can now apply for state compensation, Global Times reported.
According to the China Daily report, Zhang said the wrongful sentence had cost him the best years of his life. Her two children are now married and have their own children.
"It is difficult for compensation to compensate the damage of the wrongful sentence for me and my family, but I still hope to receive prompt compensation to repair my house and care for my mother," said Zhang.
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Chinese criminal justice
For years, human rights defenders have criticized China's legal system, claiming that it allows for unfair trials, torture and other ill-treatment in detention.
China has attempted to reform its legal system. According to the Global Times report, China officially adopted the legal principle of "innocent until proven otherwise" in 1996.
In 2013, an influential Communist Party legal commission issued new guidelines calling for fairer due process in China's judicial system.
However, problems with the country's legal system persist. China's judicial system has a conviction rate of around 99%, according to legal observers. It is also in the hands of the ruling Communist Party. Courts are first seen as a "political body", according to the country's Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Zhou Qiang.
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It is still rare for sentences to be reversed, although Zhang is not the first.
In 2013, a man who served 17 years of a life sentence for murdering his wife was released after a Higher People's Court in Anhui province ruled that “the facts about the alleged murder were unclear and the evidence was inadequate ».
In 2016, China's highest court overturned Nie Shubin's conviction for rape and murder, more than two decades after the man was executed.
Ruan Chuansheng, a law professor at the Shanghai Institute of Management, said the ruling in the Zhang case showed progress in the rule of law, according to the China Daily. But he also said that judicial authorities could help prevent unfair convictions by excluding evidence obtained through torture.