A south China court on Friday failed to make a verdict after rehearing the case of a migrant worker who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for taking 175,000 yuan (24,400 U.S. dollars) from a malfunctioning automatic teller machine.

The verdict of the 24-year-old's first trial sentence last year sparked an outcry from media and legal experts alike. Many people said Xu Ting from Linfen City, Shanxi Province, who worked in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, as a security guard, did not deserve such a severe punishment.

The Intermediate People's Court of Guangzhou was told by the Guangdong Provincial Higher People's Court last month to rehear the case. It said the November ruling lacked evidence and some facts needed clarification.

In court on Friday, prosecutors insisted in charging Xu with stealing from a banking institution while the accused's lawyers protested their client was not guilty.

Xu admitted to withdrawing the money over repeated visits to the same machine in 2006, but said it did not constitute a crime and he shouldn't have been given a life sentence.

"I discovered that the ATM malfunctioned and I felt it was my duty to keep the money myself for the bank's sake. I decided to give the money back to the the bank the next day," Xu told the court.

However, Xu quit his job after that without collecting his pay and took a coach home.

"I called the bank manager a month later and asked him if I could return the money month by month because I spent some of it. The manager told me I would definitely be jailed whether or not I returned the money.

"So I gave up the thought of returning the money," Xu said.

The court session, which lasted four hours starting from 9 a.m., was covered by more than 100 journalists nationwide.

Counsel Yang Zhenping reasoned Xu did not go into the bank, so he did not steal from a banking institution; he used his real identity to get the money at a public venue, which is not to "steal"; what he did was a case of improper gains according to the civil law and should not be judged according to the criminal law.

Xu's other counsel, Wu Yichun, added the bank's records provided by prosecutors contradicted the ATM record with regards to time, so it should not be relied upon. In April 2006, Xu let a friend surnamed Guo in on his secret that a Guangzhou Commercial Bank ATM deducted only 1 yuan from his account for every 1,000 yuan withdrawn.

Xu subsequently withdrew 175,000 yuan in 171 transactions, while Guo withdrew 18,000 yuan.

Guo was jailed for one year after turning himself in while Xu remained on the run for a year before being caught in May. He was given a life sentence for theft in the first trial.

(Xinhua News Agency February 23, 2008)