An apparatus and a method for improving the performance of an error correction code in response to the influence of error propagation are disclosed. A receiver of a mobile communication system, which transmits/receives data at a high speed by means of the plurality of transmission antennas and the plurality of reception antennas, estimates a transmission signal of a specific path from a first received signal according to a preset criterion, measures an error component for each symbol of the estimated transmission signal, performs an error correction for symbols having a corresponding error component exceeding a preset value, detects transmission data from all symbols through a predetermined signal reverse-processing procedure, reconstructs a transmission signal from the transmission data, subtracts the reconstructed transmission signal from the received signal to generate a second received signal, and repeats the above operations until transmission data of all paths are detected from the second received signal.