Zhao Jun, chairman of the Beijing Meili Rensheng Healthcare Company, found a private detective Huang Lirong monitoring him in December last year.

Zhao ordered one of his employees, Yang Zhanli, to find Huang and beat him. Huang died after Yang's assault.

The Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court earlier this month made a judgment in the first instance, ruling that Yang should face life in prison and Zhao should be imprisoned for seven years, both for the crime of willful and malicious injury.

Yang was given a heavier punishment since he was a repeat offender, having served an earlier 10-year term on a swindling and theft conviction.

The case has aroused wide attention over harm faced by people in certain professions, such as those in the private detective business.

The role is forbidden in China, according to sources with the Ministry of Public Security.

But there have been a total of 23,000 such consultants and businesses doing work so far in the nation, China Central Television reported.

Before the judgment, Zhao's relatives compensated family members of Huang 180,000 yuan (US$22,000) for economic losses including transportation fees, funeral expenses, for wrongful death.

The judgment confirmed that Zhao's company had exaggerated the function of a type of medicine in advertisements when the Meili Rensheng company served as a medicine factory's agent.

Economic losses were caused through unfaithful advertisements, according to the court.

The medicine factory then paid a consultation company 6,000 yuan (US$730) asking the company to investigate Zhao, the chairman of the advertisement firm.

As a private detective at the company, the 39-year-old Huang then went to do the job.

In December of last year, Yang and his followers caught Huang, who was monitoring Zhao using a camera and a telescope.

Yang then beat Huang using an iron pipe, causing Huang's liver to rupture. Huang finally died as a result of an excessive loss of blood.

Huang's body was abandoned by Yang at a hospital in Dongcheng District.

According to the public prosecutor in the case, Huang's behavior violated civil laws but did not constitute crimes.

According to Liang Huixing, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, even if Huang illegally eavesdropped or took pictures of Zhao's private life, Zhao and his employees should have called the police instead of beating him to death, the Beijing Times reported.