Liu Renwen :The Trial of Xu Ting

Published: 2008-04-23

From Observer, page 41,issue no. 363, April 14, 2008

Translated by Liu Peng

Original article: [Chinese]

Xu Ting, 25, was an ordinary Chinese youth corrupted by temptation.

Though greed has landed him life imprisonment, public outcry fanned by extensive media coverage has given him a chance for retrial.

The case of Xu Ting – who was charged with theft for withdrawing 175,000 yuan from a malfunctioned automated teller machine (ATM)?at a?Guangzhou Commercial Bank?– sparked off nationwide public debates.

Legal experts might dismiss some public opinion as ignorant of the rule of law with?comments such as "the bank is bribing its customer with a malfunctioning ATM" and "the bank is responsible for tempting the customer to commit a crime" emerged to argue for the "injustice" against Xu.

Though some of the views expressed were emotional in nature, both laymen and experts held a common ground -- the key contentious point was over the severity of punishment rather than the crime itself.