ellington  - A Chinese immigrant to New Zealand who abandoned his 3-year-old daughter at an Australian railway station was found guilty Saturday of murdering his wife before leaving the country.

An all-women jury in the Auckland High Court after a three-week trial took about seven hours to find Nai Yin Xue, 55, guilty of murdering An An Liu, 28, in September 2007.

Xue, who faces a mandatory life sentence although a judge will decide the length of a period of non-parole next month, shouted, "unfair, unfair" and "I'm innocent" as the verdict was delivered, according to news reports.

The case made headlines around the world after Xue abandoned the couple's daughter, dubbed Pumpkin because of the brand of clothes she wore, at the Melbourne railway station after killing her mother, whose naked body with one of his ties around her neck was found in the boot of his car.

Xue, who flew to Los Angeles after leaving the child, was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia, four months later after an American-Chinese family recognized him from photographs on a television programme of America's most wanted criminals.

Detective Simon Scott told reporters after the verdict that the daughter Qian Xun was happy and thriving in her new home with her grandmother in China.

During the trial, Xue's attorney contended somebody else killed Liu after she had a sexual affair and that he did not know she was dead when he took the child to Australia.

The prosecution said it was "a bizarre explanation" because there was no other suspect. (dpa)