China is growing more willing to review dodgy convictions

ON A NOVEMBER morning in 2004, Wang Zhansheng’s three- and six-year-old sons fell suddenly and violently ill. The older boy recovered. His little brother died the same day. Police in their home province of Henan, in central China, concluded that the toddler had been murdered. Soon they said they had caught the culprit: Wu Chunhong, a 34-year-old neighbour with three children of his own. Under interrogation, Mr Wu told police that he had quarrelled with the boy’s father over a small debt. He said that he had taken revenge by sneaking into the family’s kitchen and sprinkling rat poison into cooking ingredients.