The highest court of Henan province declared a man innocent after he was handed a suspended death sentence in 2006 for poisoning two children.
In November 2004, two children in a Henan village were found poisoned with tetramine, a common rodenticide. One child recovered; the other died. Wu Chunhong, a villager who had been involved in trivial disputes with the children’s family, was arrested and charged with homicide.
Wu’s family pleaded his innocence for over a decade, filing appeal after appeal. In September 2018, the Supreme People’s Court ruled there had been insufficient evidence to convict Wu of homicide and ordered a retrial in the Henan High People’s Court.
Wu’s daughter said her father never confessed to his alleged crime, and even refused to accept a commuted sentence. In 2018, China’s courts corrected the verdicts of 1,821 criminal cases, reversing guilty decisions in the cases of 819 convicted criminals.