A Chinese man who helped cut off panda fur after it was killed 17 years ago has been arrested, China Business News reported on Friday.

Zhang Chengwa, the brother-in-law of one of the men convicted of the panda murder, from Yangxian county in North China's Shaanxi province, went missing after he knew his conspirators had been arrested in March 1995.

Gao Jianyun was sentenced to a suspended death sentence, according to Yangxian county's People's Procuratorate. He Zhengqiang and Yuan Jinguang were sentenced to at least eight years in jail.

They committed the murder in Feb 1995 due to the high price for panda fur, around 300,000 yuan ($46,000), Gao Jianyun said.