Man wrongly jailed for 7 years seeks payout

A man who spent more than seven years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murder is waiting once again, this time for a response to his claim for compensation from the state.

Dai Kemin, 53, who was released on January 10, is demanding almost 3.2 million yuan (US$512,000) for the mental and physical anguish suffered over years of confinement. He said that while in prison he experienced heart problems, suffered a stroke and developed a slipped disc in his back. He also claimed to have become impotent.

Dai said most of his injuries were the result of 20 days of torture inflicted on him in 2006 by police officers determined to make him confess, Beijing Times reported yesterday.

"I am weak in mind and body," Dai said. "Sometimes I sit in a chair and my mind just goes blank. I used to like singing and playing basketball, but now I have lost all interest."

The former teacher said several of his family members, including his mother, died while he was in prison, and he is angry and sad that he was denied the chance to say goodbye to them.

"I just want the compensation I deserve," he said.

Speaking of the law enforcement officers he claimed tortured him, Dai said: "They violated the law and should be punished. They brought me great loss. I can never forgive them."

The newspaper report did not say if he planned to file a lawsuit against the police, prosecutors or the courts.

Murder most foul

On August 4, 2002, a man and his two grandchildren in east China's Anhui Province were brutally murdered. The children's parents were also badly injured in the attack.

In the days following, many people in the local community were questioned, including Dai, who was working as a mathematics teacher at a middle school, the report said.

No one was charged, however, and Dai said life went back to normal. Until one night four years later.

Without explanation, Dai said police entered his home and dragged from his bed in the middle of the night and took him to a nearby hotel.

"Police officers tied me to a chair and connected me to a machine," he said.

The machine was a polygraph, or lie detector. After questioning Dai for about 10 minutes, officers decided he was lying and took him into custody.

At the station Dai was shackled and surrounded by officers armed with metal sticks, the report said.

"They kept asking me if I had killed the people. I kept saying 'no,' but they kept repeating the question."

Soon after, Dai was moved to a detention center in Bozhou City, where he would stay for what he called the worst 20 days of his life.

As well as depriving Dai of food and water, guards would cuff his hands behind his back and wrench him up.

"It felt like they were breaking my arms," he said.

He said he was regularly tortured. Sometimes, the guards would strip him naked and pour freezing water on him.

"It was unbearable," he said. "I wanted to die, so I confessed to the murders."

The desperate man also had to make his tale convincing, he said.

"I had to create a story about how I had killed these people," he said. "If they weren't happy with how it all worked, they made me rethink it and give them a new version," he said.

As a result of his confession, Dai was formally arrested on October 10, 2007. Prosecutors in Anhui's Bozhou City accused him of murder, saying he had held a grudge against the family and had taken his revenge.

In November 2009, the Bozhou Intermediate People's Court sentenced Dai to death, but six months later a retrial was ordered due to a lack of evidence.

In September 2011, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Dai appealed, but the court upheld the verdict in February of last year.

Five months later, however, the provincial higher court reviewed the case and ruled the evidence "defective," and on September 2 quashed the conviction and ordered the intermediate court to hear the case again. On January 10, 2014, Dai was found not guilty.

"I couldn't die," Dai said. "If I had, people would have thought I was guilty. But I have never killed anyone."