A Chinese court has sentenced one man to death with a two-year reprieve and two others to long jail terms for setting fires that killed six people in the Lhasa riot last year, the Tibet Daily reported Tuesday.
A spokesman of the Lhasa Municipal Intermediate People's Court told the newspaper that Penkyi, of Sagya County, received the suspended death penalty for starting fires in two downtown clothing shops on March 14.
He lit a blaze in Hongyu Trousers on the Qingnian road, completely destroying the shop and killing shop owner Zuo Rencun. The economic loss was put at 250,000 yuan.
Then Penkyi along with Penkyi, of Nyinmo County, and Chimed went to Yishion clothing store on the East Beijing Road. The latter two threw the clothes on the ground while Penkyi, of Sagya, lit a fire.
Five of the shop's six staff, aged 17 to 23, died in the blaze. Property losses were put at 1.5 million yuan.
The court found all the three guilty of arson.
"These arsons were among the worst crimes. They led to the extremely serious consequences, resulted in great loss of life and property and severely undermined social order, security and stability," the spokesman said.
Penkyi, of Nyinmo, was sentenced to life imprisonment and Chimed was jailed for 10 years.
The court showed leniency on the two Penkyis, who were described as the principal instigators of the arsons, as they had turned themselves in to police.
The spokesman said the trials had been open and strictly abided by the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China. The defendants were provided with Tibetan language interpreters and their attorneys had expressed their arguments in full.
The report did not say when the sentences were delivered nor did it give other details of the defendants and their arguments.
On April 8, the court sentenced two people to death, two to suspended death penalties and another to life in prison on charges of arson causing death. The five were convicted of torching five shops in Lhasa, killing seven people, during the March 14 riot.
(Xinhua News Agency April 21, 2009)
