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BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese man who died in custody in what police said was a game of hide-and-seek gone awry was actually beaten to death by fellow prisoners, a provincial inquiry has found.

Li Qioming, 24, died from a severe brain injury four days after being sent to hospital from a detention centre in the southwestern province of Yunnan, where he had been held for cutting down trees.

Police initially said Li had been playing hide-and-seek blindfolded, and had run into a wall.

But The inquiry found that Li was fatally beaten by an inmate known as "big brother" using the excuse of the game, according to a report on Friday on the website of the Yunnan Daily, an official provincial newspaper.

Some Chinese prison officials entrust the task of keeping order to a prisoner known as "the boss" or "big brother."

The initial explanation for Li's death met with such derision that the authorities invited Internet users to help with the investigation. The web users then proceeded to hack the local government website, leaving bizarre messages.

Prison officials and the police on duty that day have been punished or removed from their post, the report said.

The prison in Jinning county was unable to provide video clips for the investigation, since its monitoring equipment had been broken for half a year, according to a separate report on the Yunnan Daily website.