A young female customer, who was sued by the computer giant ASUS for extortion, received 30,000 yuan as compensation on Thursday for her 10-month stint in jail, her lawyer Zhou Chengyu said.

Sina.com reports Huang Jing's 295-day imprisonment won her 29,197.14 yuan in damages, which infers she got less than 100 yuan for each day spent in prison.

Huang Jing's ordeal with ASUS started when she was a university student on February 9, 2006. She bought a V6800V model ASUS laptop from a Beijing retailer. Her computer had many problems including frequent blue screen freeze-ups.

She sent the computer back to ASUS several times for repairs, but the problems persisted. Upon further examination, it turned out her new CPU was an Intel "engineering sample" which was not supposed to be sold.

At that point, Huang Jing got herself a lawyer and demanded that ASUS pay the equivalent of US$5 million in compensation. If they did not comply, she threatened to break the news of their shady practices to the media.

In March 2006, both Huang and her lawyer Zhou Chengyu were arrested for extortion. Nearly a year later, she was released since the court judged the evidence against her was inadequate.

In November 2007, Beijing Haidian District Procuratorate determined that the detention of Huang Jing was illegal and that she was eligible for national compensation.

Her lawyer Zhou Chengyu revealed they had applied for a national compensation of 46,855.62 yuan and were awarded 29,197.14 yuan (US$4275).

(CRI/Agencies, November 28, 2008)