Chinese court to rehear faulty ATM case

BEIJING, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese court in the southern city of Guangzhou will rehear a case where a man was sentenced to life imprisonment for taking large sums from a malfunctioning automatic teller machine (ATM), a local newspaper reported.

The verdict of the Guangdong provincial higher people's court ruled the intermediate court should rehear the case because "there was insufficient evidence for the previous ruling", according to the New Express Daily.

Xu Ting, a 24-year-old migrant, was sentenced to life imprisonment for taking cash from the faulty machine, a ruling which sparked a nationwide debate last month.

He would hopefully receive bail and be permitted a reunion with his family during the upcoming Spring Festival next month, his lawyers said.

In April 2006, when he was withdrawing cash from the ATM, Xu realized it had only deducted one yuan (13 U.S. cents) from his account for every 1,000 yuan withdrawn. He then told this to a friend surnamed Guo.

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

Guo was jailed for a year after turning himself in. Xu remained on the run for a year before being apprehended and sentenced to life for the theft.

Xu's lawyers said the case was not one of theft or embezzlement and their client should not be blamed for taking money from an ATM that had technical problems.