SHANGHAI - A MAN in China was jailed for abandoning his elderly mother - who later died alone - on a public square after taking nearly US$40,000 (S$57,887) from her, state media and a local court said on Friday.

Wang Kouma, 54, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for leaving his 83-year-old mother, Teng Jindi, on a Shanghai square in October 2007, a judge at a city district court involved in the case, who refused to be named, told AFP.

Wang had earlier taken 270,000 yuan (US$57,163) that had been given to Ms Teng by the government as relocation expenses, the official China Daily said.

Such money is generally given to people whose homes have been appropriated so they can find a new place to live.

Police later found Ms Teng on the square and a neighbourhood committee put her into a hostel where she died nearly three months later of a heart attack, according to the report.

The committee had tried to appeal to her other four sons and two daughters to fetch and care for her, but they all refused on the grounds that she was Wang's responsibility as he had taken her money, the report said.

None of them visited her at the hostel, the China Daily said.

Wang was arrested in June, but denied abandoning his mother in court.

'I went to buy cigarettes, and when I came back she had disappeared,' he said, according to the newspaper.

'I looked for her until eight in the evening.' But the police officer who found Ms Teng on the square had a different version of events.

'She told me that her son had told her to ask the government for a place to live,' he said, according to the China Daily.

The court ruled that Wang had abandoned his mother despite knowing she was in poor health.

Chinese law states that anyone who fails to support an elderly, minor or sick family member who later dies can be sentenced to up to five years in prison, according to the China Daily. -- AFP