BEIJING (Reuters) - The children of a Chinese butcher executed for murdering a waitress have appealed against his conviction after the "victim" turned up alive, the second such judicial blunder to be made public in recent weeks.
Shi Xiaorong was 18 when she disappeared in 1987 at the same time as six pieces of a woman's body, sliced off "in a professional manner", were found in a river in southern Hunan province, a newspaper said on Thursday.
Police arrested Teng Xingshan because he was a butcher by trade and because of rumours he used to go to the hotel where Shi worked to find prostitutes, the Beijing News said.
Hunan Provincial Court sentenced Teng to death for murder despite an appeal and a signature campaign by hundreds of local villagers and officials. He was executed by gunshot in 1989.
"He cried out he was innocent until he was at the execution ground," the newspaper quoted one of Teng's lawyers as saying.
Waitress Shi was later found to be serving a prison sentence with her husband for selling drugs, the newspaper said.
Wrongful convictions are not uncommon in China where a campaign has been launched to clean up the interrogation and trial process.
In April, She Xianglin was freed after serving 11 years of a 15-year jail sentence in central Hubei province for murdering his wife when she turned up not only alive but with another man.
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