By MARTIN FACKLER
SHANGHAI, China – Police in western China have executed a Tibetan for a string of bomb attacks in support of Tibetan independence, despite an international outcry over the fairness of his trial.
Lobsang Dhondup, 28, was executed Sunday afternoon in Ganzi, a city near the Tibetan border in Sichuan province, immediately after a court upheld his original death sentence, an official at Ganzi Intermediate People’s Court said Monday. She refused to give her name.
The Sichuan Provincial High People’s Court also rejected an appeal by Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche, a 52-year-old senior Buddhist monk, and affirmed his suspended death sentence, the official said. A suspended sentence is usually commuted to life in prison.
The two men were convicted in December of seeking independence for Tibet and involvement in a series of bombings that killed one person.
While only Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche filed an appeal, the court affirmed the sentences of both men on Sunday, the official Xinhua News Agency said Sunday.
The case has raised protests among Tibetan activists and the U.S. government.
The top U.S. human rights official raised the men’s cases during talks last month in Beijing. Assistant Secretary of State Lorne Craner expressed “deep concern” about the severity of the sentences and the possible lack of a fair trial.
China has angrily rejected such appeals as interference in its internal affairs.
Militants opposed to Chinese control of Tibet have carried out at least eight bomb attacks in the Himalayan region since the mid-1990s. Communist troops marched into the region in 1950, and Beijing says it has been part of China for centuries.
The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in 1959 during a failed uprising against communist rule, has urged Tibetans to avoid violence, but some want more direct action.
Activists describe Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche as a community leader in Sichuan, which abuts Tibet and has a large ethnic Tibetan population.
The court official in Ganzi refused to tell how Lobsang Dhondup’s execution was carried out, but China’s usual method is by gunshot to the back of the head.
