A Chinese man who was wrongly jailed for murder has offered a generous 500,000-yuan (US$70,000) bounty for information leading to the arrest of the real killer.

Chen Shijiang, 49, from eastern China’s Shandong province, has taken to social media in search of clues.

In 1998, at the age of 22, Chen was wrongly convicted of killing a woman in his village.

The 56-year-old victim was the wife of a cash keeper for the village government. Chen was accused of killing her to steal money for a furniture factory he was planning to open.

Chen said he was tortured by the police to confess to the crime, but the court did not believe him.