Police arrest girlfriend of British teacher over murder in China

The girlfriend of a British lecturer has been arrested along with two other men over his murder in southern China, Chinese police said on Friday, with local media reporting he was dismembered after he was killed.

Hilary Bower, 60, who taught at a university in Hong Kong, was murdered over an "emotional dispute," mainland Chinese police said, as media reports painted a complex picture of his love life involving several women.

The English language lecturer had been missing for more than three weeks after he was last seen on March 21 at a border point between Hong Kong and the neighbouring southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, where he was reported to have resided.

Hong Kong police said earlier this week that Bower had been killed in mainland China, "possibly" murdered.

Police in Shenzhen confirmed on Friday that he had been murdered on March 22, a day after he went missing.

A 38-year-old woman surnamed Xu and two men "murdered her foreigner boyfriend Hilary Bower over an emotional dispute" the Shenzhen public security bureau said on its Twitter-like Weibo account.

Hong Kong authorities were notified about Bower's absence on March 30, the police said in a statement, adding that mainland Chinese authorities had informed them that he had been killed on the evening of March 22.

Bower previously worked in mainland China, South Korea, Thailand, Spain and Kuwait.

In 2011, the murder of another British national, Neil Heywood, sparked a diplomatic scandal when the wife of former Chinese leader Bo Xilai was convicted.