BEIJING, June 8 (Reuters) - A Chinese court has put off the trial of an environmental activist once hailed a hero for protecting the country's third-largest lake to investigate torture accusations, his wife said on Friday.

Wu Lihong, 39, a candidate in 2005 in a national campaign to name 10 people who "moved China" with their service to society, had been due to go on trial in Yixing, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, on June 12 on charges of extortion and blackmail.

But the Yixing People's Court court had indefinitely postponed the trial to investigate accusations that interrogators tortured Wu to extract a confession, the activist's wife, Xu Jiehua, told Reuters.

Court officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Wu was arrested in April after he reported the worsening pollution at Taihu Lake, which was covered in a thick, green algae in late May and early June, cutting off water to the city of Wuxi.

State media said at the weekend tap water was back to normal.

The algae, fed by industrial and agricultural waste, has also been reported at Chaohu Lake -- China's fifth-largest freshwater lake -- in eastern Anhui province.

Taihu Lake, with an area of 2,420 square km (934 square miles) and a shoreline of 400 km (250 miles), is China's second largest, straddling the border of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and is home to more than 60 kinds of fish.

AlertNet news is provided by