Beijing: Chinese courts acquitted a total of 825 people out of almost 1.16 million verdicts last year, the Supreme People's Court says - a conviction rate of 99.93 per cent.

In a report to the annual session of the Communist Party-controlled National People's Congress, Zhou Qiang, head of the Supreme People's Court, said that Chinese courts convicted 1.158 million people in 954,000 criminal cases heard.

Found guilty: Bo Xilai standing on trial in the Intermediate People's Court in Jinan.

They exonerated only 825 people, he said in the report, in accordance with rules including "protecting human rights" and "excluding illegal evidence".

Abuses are widespread in China's legal system, where police routinely coerce confessions.