14 DAY TRIAL // What reason(s) do you think would someone have to set on fire hundreds of mobile phones? There aren't many reasonable ones that you can think of, right? Well, a woman from China burned more than 400 handsets because she was dumped by her husband.
The couple was living in Weifang, Shandong, somewhere south of Beijing, and on the 3rd of March 2008 the husband decided to leave, for good, although he and his wife owned a profitable phone business. After that, the dumped wife, in an action that she probably thought it's some kind of revenge, gathered all the mobile phones they had on stock and set them on fire inside the house she and her husband lived in. Fortunately, the ex-family's neighbors called the firefighters and the flames were quickly put out.
We don't have info about what mobile phone brands were among the 400 devices that burned, but we know their value rises at more than 300,000 yuan (about $42,000 of 27,500 Euro).
I believe this is the first time ever when someone deliberately sets on fire such a big number of cell phones, and I hope it's also the last time. If the woman didn't need the phones anymore, they could have been offered to poor people for example, or sold and the money received on them could have been used for charitable purposes. But in the end it was the woman's choice. A not really wise choice, but still hers.
According to the Xinhua News Agency, after the incident, the 37 years old woman was arrested for arson. So in the end, not only that she has been dumped by her husband, but she also got to visit a penitentiary for a little while. Nice way of celebrating 8 March, the International Women's Day, isn't it?