The regulations ban courts from accepting confessions obtained via torture or other "illegal" means and lay out guidelines for judges to better scrutinise evidence.

The laws, issued by the nation's high court, were posted Sunday on the website of the central government.

The rules were issued after a convicted murderer in central China's Henan province was freed in early May after more than 10 years in prison when his "victim" reappeared in perfect health.

Zhao Zuohai, 57, caused a national stir after he revealed that police tortured a murder confession out of him by beating him with sticks, setting fireworks off over his head and depriving him of sleep for about a month, state media reports said earlier.

Zhao had been arrested after a neighbour went missing following a fight between the two men over a woman. Zhao was charged when a headless, decomposed body was found 18 months later.

"They taught me how to plead guilty. They told me to repeat what they said, and I had to, or I would be beaten," the state-controlled China Daily quoted Zhao as saying.

"They wrote down what I repeated and said it was my confession."

China's criminal code has long banned the use of torture to extract confessions, but the practice remains widespread due to pressure on law enforcement officials to crack cases.

Following Zhao's release, the Public Security Ministry issued regulations that call for demotions or administrative punishments for police caught torturing or mistreating criminal suspects.

The new regulations also follow a spate of deaths inside Chinese prisons since last year that cast further light on brutality in the nation's jails.

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