Record payment in execution

The parents of Nie Shubin, a man who was convicted of and executed for rape and murder 21 years ago, have been paid more than 2.68 million yuan ($389,000) in compensation as a result of having had their son's conviction overturned in December, a court in Hebei province said.

The Hebei Provincial People's Court released a statement online on Thursday saying the State compensation covered Nie's funeral expenses and payment for his wrongful detention and conviction and psychological damage to the family.

Of the total, the psychological compensation amounted to 1.3 million yuan, "setting a record for compensation for people wrongly detained or convicted," according to Wang Dianxue, the family's lawyer.

In 2016, Chen Man, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years for homicide and arson, received 900,000 yuan for mental anguish, while in 2015, the mother of Hugjiltu, a young man from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region who was wrongly executed in 1996, was paid 1 million yuan for her psychological suffering.

"The compensation for my clients' psychological damage ... reflects that the court took the family's suffering in the past two decades into consideration and gave full respect to the victim's life," he said, adding the total amount of compensation is a "breakthrough" for the country.

Zhang Huanzhi, Nie's mother, said after receiving the court's statement on Thursday that she will not appeal the compensation award. She had applied on Dec 15 for a total of 13.9 million yuan in compensation, including 12 million for psychological damage.

"I can accept the result, and I feel the court's efforts and attitude toward my case," she said, adding that all she wants now is to live a quiet life.

On Dec 2, Nie, 21, a native of Hebei, was posthumously found not guilty at the Second Circuit Court of the Supreme People's Court in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, based on unclear facts and insufficient evidence. He was executed in 1995 for the rape and murder of a woman.

Since then, Zhang had appealed to government agencies and courts to clear her son's name. Authorities began reviewing the case in 2005, and in June of 2016, the national top court ordered the circuit court to rehear the case.