Last updated at 01:14 06 September 2007

It was an intriguing blend of fact and fiction that sent the Polish media into a frenzy: a blockbuster author accused of committing the murder he wrote about in one of his thrillers.

Now a court has decided the truth is indeed stranger than fiction, finding Polish author Krystian Bala guilty of the murder described in his 2003 book "Amok".

In "Amok", Krystian Bala described in detail the brutal murder of a Polish businessman. He wrote of a dead body fished out of a river bearing the harrowing marks of torture - limbs distended, hands bound and tied to a noose around the neck.

In the novel, police investigators are left without any clue as to how the well-liked and successful professional came to such a grisly end.

In reality, however, police noticed the fictional crime had similarities with a case in 2000 when a body was fished out of the river Oder in the town of Wroclaw, near the German border.

The dead man, known only as Dariusz J, was revealed to be the ex-lover of a woman who happened to be married to Bala.

Chief Inspector Jack Wroblewski received an anonymous call five years after the body was found in December, 2000, telling him to read Amok, published in 2003.

Inspector Wroblewski read the novel - a tale of how a group of intellectuals delve into sex, drugs and torture - in amazement several times, believing similarities between fact and "fiction" were striking.

Dariusz J was found near a weir on the river Oder in with his hands bound behind his back and round his wrists and neck.

The fictional victim in Amok was tied up in a similar fashion and his body was pulled from a river in the city of Wroclaw.

The book contains intimate details of the killing that police say only they could have known - or the killer.

Prosecutors said Bala had humiliated, tortured, starved and later killed his victim, who had a love affair with the writer's wife.

Speaking in court, his ex-wife described Bala as "controlling" and said that was the reason she had divorced him.

In court, Mr Wroblewski accused Bala of selling Dariusz J's mobile phone on the internet four days after his death.

Mr Wroblewski also claims Bala sent the TV programme 997, the Polish equivalent of Crimewatch, emails from diving trips in South Korea and Indonesia in which he described the murder as "the perfect crime".

"The court has sentenced Krystian B. to 25 years in prison for the murder of his ex-wife's lover," said a spokesman for the court in Wroclaw.

Bala told authorities that he had taken details of the case from press reports and made up other aspects of the story. He claimed he was framed to cover up for a "bungled" police investigation.

Before the trial, he said: "Amok is a fictional work. Although the language and situations are strong it is an intellectual work."