Family of school worker who was killed and buried given 880,000 yuan

A county government recently classified the death of Deng Shiping, a school maintenance worker in Central China's Hunan province who was killed and buried by gangsters over 16 years ago, as a work-related injury and gave 880,000 yuan ($124,000) to his family to help it cope with his death and funeral expenses.

A lawyer for Deng's family said on Monday that the human resources and social security bureau of Xinhuang Dong Autonomous County announced the classification of Deng's death in February.

Deng was a school maintenance worker at Xinhuang No 1 Middle School in the county, which is in Huaihua, Hunan. He was reported missing in 2003 after he exposed problems with the quality of a sports ground construction project at the school.

In April last year, gang leader Du Shaoping was detained and confessed to killing and burying a man. About two months later, Deng's body was found buried under the school's sports ground.

Du had illegally won the right to build the sports ground in 2001.

Deng, who was responsible for quality control of the project, angered Du when he questioned him about it. Du and others killed and buried Deng in January 2003.

Du was sentenced to death in December last year after being found guilty of intentional homicide, intentional injury, disturbance of public order, illegal detention and affray. He was executed in January.