A man who spread a rumor that police had provided a substitute for a killer driver is serving a 10-day detention in central China's Hubei Province, the province's public security department said Tuesday.

Police in Hubei's E'zhou City detained Xiong Zhongjun on August 21 for violating public security administration provisions and he had confessed, the department said.

Xiong wrote nine posts online from July 21 to August 2, trying to inflame public controversy and anger about the police. He claimed photographs of the driver Hu Bin from the scene of the accident and at his court appearance were of different people.

He continued spreading the rumors despite clarification by the Xihu district court in Hangzhou City, where the case was on trial, and the city's procuratorate, which probed the allegations.

The killer driver Xiong referred to, Hu Bin, was sentenced to three years in prison in July on charges of vehicular manslaughter.

Hu had been severely criticized after drag-racing on a road with a speed limit of 50 km per hour when he ran into and killed a 25-year-old man. He has also paid 1.13 million yuan (165,396 U.S. dollars) in compensation to the family of the victim.

(Xinhua News Agency August 25, 2009)