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A controversial case in which a man was sentenced to five years in prison and fined more than 21 million yuan ($3.3 million) for selling fake brand-name sweaters will be retried after a high people's court repealed the first verdict on Monday.

Li Qing, a farmer from Chenzhou in Hunan province, was arrested in December 2010 by police from Erdos, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, for selling fake Erdos brand wool sweaters at lower prices at a market in Chenzhou.

The Erdos city police seized 26,151 sweaters priced at 2,180 yuan, 1,680 yuan and 968 yuan, from Li's store. The 43 million yuan worth of merchandise - based on their marked prices – was sent to the city court as evidence.

On Sept 21, the Intermediate People's Court in Erdos sentenced Li to five years imprisonment and fined him 21.51 million yuan.

"The fine was astronomical. My husband's punishment was too severe to bear," Li's wife, Li Hongying, told China Daily on Tuesday.

"We are not well-educated and didn't know our business was illegal. We made only 10,000 yuan in profit in the four months of operation."

"I even thought about divorce at that time," she said.

The couple decided to appeal to a higher court on Sept 30.

After investigation, the region's high people's court on Monday asked the intermediate court to rehear the case, saying the first verdict was reached without sufficient evidence and clear facts, according to an officer in the high court.

"We'll prepare more evidence for the trial and hope to get a fair sentence," said Wang Fukui, Li Qing's attorney for the second trial. Wang added that Li is still under detention in Erdos.

Unless the rehearing turns out differently, Li Hongying said she will have to borrow from her relatives and friends to pay the fine.

Four other people were arrested with Li Qing, but they have already been released and sent back to Chenzhou.

Nan Xindan, Li Qing's lawyer during the first trial, said the investigation of the Erdos police broke procedural laws.

Li had a computer and an account book to record the sale prices of the sweaters, usually about 50 yuan to 100 yuan. But the police took the much higher marked prices as evidence, she said.

Liu Yinliang, a legal expert specializing in intellectual property rights at Peking University, agreed with Nan and said the determination of a fine should consider many factors, not only the marked price.

"The police calculated Li's illegal gains according to the sweaters' marked prices, but the actual selling prices were much lower. It was thoughtless," Liu said, adding that the protection of intellectual property does not rely only on high fines.

Liu said the transregional arrest is also questionable, because intellectual property cases should be investigated by the police in the jurisdictions where the offense occurred or where the suspects live.

Yet, the Erdos police rejected Liu's comments and said the arrest last year was part of a crackdown on counterfeits named "Bright Sword", launched by the Ministry of Public Security, and conformed with a judicial interpretation from the Supreme People's Court.

But they declined to release details about the investigation at that time.

The case has sparked heated public discussion.

Huang Youjian, 26, who works at an Internet company in Chenzhou, said he could not believe it when he heard the amount of Li's fine.

"The fine would take the poor farmer his whole life to pay," he said.

（中國日報網英語點津 Rosy 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the US, including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is also fluent in Korean.