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Burglar 'too good' for crime

A veteran Austrian burglar was acquitted after a court agreed he was too experienced to have committed the crime was accused of.

Ernst Stummer, 69, was charged with breaking into a shop in Vienna and stealing £600 worth of goods after police found his DNA on a pair of pliers left at the scene.

But lawyers for Stummer, who has 18 previous convictions for burglary, persuaded the court that it was too poor a burglary to be the work of their client.

Roland Friis, Stummer's lawyer, said: "He is experienced enough to never break into a building secured by an alarm.

"Also, no halfway reasonable burglar would use such needle nose pliers for a job, and my client would have surely worn gloves. In fact it is almost an insult to accuse him of such a dilettante approach."

Stummer said: "The pliers are probably mine but I have a lot of pliers and a lot of tools which I sometimes lend to not very reliable people. I think someone committed the crime using my pliers - but it wasn't me."

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