Published by: World Tibet Network News ISSUE ID: 97/10/20

by H. Asher Bolande

BEIJING, Oct 18 (AFP) - A Chinese court has allowed two police commanders to walk free after convicting them of using torture to extract confessions from innocent suspects in a murder case, the official China Daily reported Saturday.

The Communist Party is seeking to make an example of the case, the like of which is rarely seen in the state media. The Party Central Committee's Commission on Politics and Law urged "judicial organs across the country to learn from the case," the report said.

But those convicted -- former director and deputy director of the Public Security Bureau in Wuwei city, Wei Yong and Wang Shouping -- received only two-year suspended prison sentences, it said.

Under Chinese law, they will remain free on probation for the period.

The police commanders tortured three suspects while investigating a

first-degree murder committed in 1992 during an armed robbery, extracting

false confessions that led to death sentences for all three.

The suspects were not executed, as the Gansu Higher People's Court ordered

a retrial citing a lack of clear evidence.

Sixteen others who were not brought to trial were "punished according to party and administrative disciplines" for their role in the miscarriage of

justice, the report said.

During the re-investigation, "the real murderers were captured and confessed to the crimes," the newspaper said, adding that the innocent suspects had been freed and compensated.

Mickey Spiegel, a consultant with the New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch Asia, said it was unusual for the state press to publicise torture convictions against Chinese officials.

"I think it's a step in the right direction that they are willing to publicly condemn this kind of behaviour, but clearly a suspended sentence for two officers when 18 were involved does not go far enough," she told AFP.

She said it was "suspicious" for a case that dates back five years to suddenly be put forward by the Chinese press, adding that Beijing may be attempting to demonstrate its progress in the legal field on the eve of President Jiang Zemin's landmark US visit.

Jiang will be in the United States -- traditionally a fierce critic of China's human rights record -- from October 26 to November 2.

The US State Department's human rights review this year cited forced confessions and torture of prisoners as examples of poor enforcement of basic human rights in China.

Although the government issues no figures on numbers of torture cases, watchdog groups including Amnesty International say forced confessions are widespread in the country, especially in rural areas.

A recent editorial in China's Legal Daily warned that "the root of the problem of extracting confessions through torture has not been eliminated." It

criticised leading cadres who turn a blind eye to the practice.

A coalition of US-based activists and exiled Chinese dissidents have vowed to hold protests during Jiang's visit for greater human rights protection and democracy in China and Tibet.

The visit is seen as the most important by a Chinese head of state since late patriarch Deng Xiaoping made a trip in 1979.