No beatings behind inmate death

KUNMING - Investigations found that an inmate who died late last week in Southwest China's Yunnan province was not beaten or otherwise maltreated, local authorities said Thursday.

Shu Shubing, a villager in Zhanyi county serving a one-year sentence at a detention center since March, died early Sunday morning after medical treatment failed to save him from an illness, the county government said in a statement.

On-duty police officers received the report of Shu's condition at 11:14 pm Saturday. They immediately sent the 25-year-old to the county people's hospital where he died one hour later, the statement said.

The authorities' response came after microblog posts alleged that Shu died from overexcitement after watching the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship.

Autopsy results showed that Shu suffered no beatings, maltreatment or poisoning, according to the statement.

The public has been highly suspicious of any deaths at detention centers after the infamous "hide-and-seek" case in Yunnan in February 2009.

In the case, a detention center had previously claimed that inmate Li Qiaoming, 24, had died while "playing the game." However, public outcry forced the government to launch an investigation, which concluded that Li had been beaten to death by three other inmates.