The man who was sentenced to death for killing a woman after hitting her with his car has appealed the ruling while the husband of the woman said he will not bury his wife until the murderer is executed.

Yao?Jiaxin in court.

Yao Jiaxin has filed an appeal against the death sentence, but it hasn't been decided who would be his lawyer, said Lu Gang, Yao's lawyer in the first trial, Qingdao-based Peninsula Metropolitan News reported yesterday.

The Xi'an Intermediate People's Court sentenced Yao to death and ordered his family to pay 45,000 yuan (US$6,931) in compensation on April 22.

The court found that Yao, a 21-year-old student of the Xi'an Conservatory of Music, stabbed Zhang Miao to death as he saw the woman was memorizing his plate number after he knocked her down with his car in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, last October.

Wang Hui, Zhang's husband, hasn't buried her body which is being kept in a funeral house. He has decided to lay her to rest on the day Yao is executed to comfort her soul, Wang told People's Daily.

Zhang's family isn't aware that Yao is appealing the verdict.

"I haven't been able to sleep for a whole night since my wife was killed. I try to restrain myself from thinking about the tragedy, but I can't," Wang told the newspaper.

Zhang's family has rejected the compensation awarded in court. "We peasant people are not difficult to deal with. We don't want money stained with blood. We only want Yao to atone for his crime with his life," Wang was quoted as saying by People's Daily.

Wang has said he will accept donations from a Shanghai lawyer who has launched an online charitable campaign to help the bereaved family. "Wang has agreed to accept the 540,000 yuan and we are still discussing how to hand over the money," Fu Weigang told Shanghai Daily yesterday.

Fu, who works at the Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law, wrote on his Weibo, China's equivalent of Tweeter, that he would give 1 yuan for each time his tweet was forwarded to Zhang's son. The tweet has been a big hit and even Fu didn't expect so many people would forward it.

Fu limited his donation to 540,000 yuan, the amount Zhang's family had sought in the case against Yao's family.