Death sentence upheld on controversial rape-murder case

The high court of north China's Hebei province on Friday upheld the death sentence on murder-rape charge to a man who claimed to have killed a victim whose murder case has led to the execution of another man 18 years ago.

The Hebei Provincial People's High Court handed down the second-trial verdict to Wang Shujin Friday, accusing him of raping three women and murdering two of them.

The court overruled his claim that he raped and killed another woman in 1994 in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei.

Wang was sentenced to death sentence in March 2007, but he appealed for mercy claiming that his confession of the Shijiazhuang case, formally unknown to the police, should have earned him less severe penalty.