Foxconn Technology Group, a unit of Taiwan electronics giant Hon Hai, said Wednesday that a section supervisor has been suspended from office after an employee committed suicide over the loss of a prototype of the iPhone.

Li Jinming, administrative general manager of Foxconn, said the group was saddened over the death of Sun Danyong, who killed himself by jumping out of a window of his 12th floor apartment last Thursday in south China boomtown Shenzhen. Security section supervisor Gu Qinming has been handed over to police for investigation.

A person who claimed to be Sun's former classmate said in a widespread Internet article that Sun was responsible for shipping 16 iPhone prototypes to Apple. One prototype was missing and Sun was suspected of leaking company secrets.

Sun was put into illegal custody and his apartment raided by the company investigation team headed by Gu. He was also beaten during the company investigation, the article said.

However, in a document provided by Foxconn, that was said to be presented by Sun himself, Sun got the prototypes on July 9 and found one of them was missing on the second day when handing them over to others. Sun guessed the prototype might be left somewhere on the production line.

The loss was reported to the company's security section on July 15, and three Foxconn employees went to his apartment to search for the missing prototype on the same day.

Before jumping out of the window, Sun sent text messages to several friends saying he felt wronged for being questioned and that his apartment was searched, according to Shenzhen police.

Local police said it was not known at the moment if inappropriate measures were taken by Foxconn employees during the search for the missing iPhone prototype.

(Xinhua News Agency July 22, 2009)