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Two Tibetans sentenced to death over Lhasa riots

By Dan Martin | AFP

Tibetans walk past a burning barricade after violent clashes with Chinese security forces in Lhasa in March 2008. A court in Tibet has sentenced two people to death over riots in Lhasa last year, China’s state media has said in what was the harshest sentence yet reported over the deadly unrest.File photo/AFP/Rune Backs/China

A court in Tibet has sentenced two people to death over riots in Lhasa last year, China’s state media said on Wednesday in what was the harshest sentence yet reported over the deadly unrest.

Two others were given suspended death sentences while another was given life in prison in three separate cases, said the report, which quoted a spokesman for the intermediate court in the Tibetan capital.

Fierce anti-China riots broke out in Lhasa in March last year and spread across Tibet and adjacent areas with Tibetan populations, deeply embarrassing the Chinese government as it was preparing to host the Beijing Summer Olympics.

China blamed the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, for inciting the violence and responded with a massive security crackdown on the region that has remained in place ever since.

Xinhua said the crimes committed by the five defendants resulted in seven deaths and the destruction of five shops in Lhasa.

The defendants all appeared to be Tibetans who carried out attacks that killed Han Chinese, according to names provided by Xinhua.

Those sentenced to death included a defendant identified as Lobsang Gyaltsen, who set fire to two Lhasa garment shops on 14 March, killing a shop owner named Zuo Rencun, the report said.

Another defendant named only as Loyak got the death penalty for an arson attack on a motorcycle dealership a day later that killed five people including the shop owner Liang Zhiwei, his wife, son and two employees.

One of Loyak’s accomplices got a suspended death sentence while another got life in prison.

In a third case, defendant Tenzin Phuntsok received a suspended death sentence for starting a fire that eventually killed a Chinese shop owner’s daughter.

Xinhua said the court was still hearing a separate arson case that led to another five deaths.

Court and government officials in Tibet were not immediately available for comment.

China has said “rioters” were responsible for 21 deaths, while saying that its security forces had killed only one “insurgent.”

However, the exiled Tibetan government headed by the Dalai Lama has said more than 200 Tibetans were killed in China’s subsequent crackdown.

In February, Xinhua reported that Chinese courts had handed down sentences ranging from three years to life in prison to a total of 76 people over the riots.

Matt Whitticase, spokesman for London-based activist group Free Tibet, condemned the verdicts, saying defendants have been denied due process in secretive trials.

“We are extremely concerned about these first death sentences. We have seen a spate of trials and sentencing in recent months that have been conducted well outside proper legal oversight and without due legal process,” he told AFP.

“The Chinese imposition of death sentences for the protests is of grave concern.”

Tibet activist groups have said the protests started when police tried to halt demonstrations on 10 March led by Buddhist monks to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising that forced the Dalai Lama into exile and cemented Chinese control of the region.

But China has consistently portrayed the unrest as a criminal act provoked by the Dalai Lama, whom it accuses of seeking to split Tibet off from China.

The Dalai Lama denies the allegation.

China maintained tight security across the Tibetan plateau last month for the 50th anniversary of the uprising to ward off new violence, and prevented foreign journalists from reporting in the region.

Copyright © 2009 AFP

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