(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-18 22:49

Three young people in China's southern Yunnan Province have been arrested over the gruesome murder of a middle-aged man whose death by dismemberment was captured on digital video camera in the tourist town of Lijiang.

The Guangzhou-based South Metropolitan Daily reported on Friday the case of Zhang Chao, a 19-year-old college student who was the mistress of the victim, Mu Hongzhang, a 39-year-old married road construction engineer, in Lijiang. The two were having a sexual affair and Mu gave her money.

Zhang, a second-year student at a tourism college affiliated to Yunnan University, met Mu while working a part-time job in a Lijiang bar.

Together with her boyfriend and his male friend, the trio killed Mu after they forced him to reveal his credit card pin number on December 19. They also withdrew more than 100,000 yuan (US$13,800) from the victim's bank account with his bank card.

The paper reported the boyfriend initially wanted to let the man go after getting the pin number but Zhang insisted on killing him.

Mu's jeep was found at a river bank two days later. Dismembered parts of his body were discovered floating in bags on a Lijiang river on December 22.

Zhang was arrested the following day and confessed what she had done, the paper said. The reasons for the murder were still under investigation.

Extra-marital affairs have caused many social problems in China in recent years. On December 29, Jiang Yan committed suicide by jumping from a Beijing building. The woman had opened a blog before her death, hoping her husband would leave his lover and come back. Many netizens condemned Jiang's husband for his disloyalty.