International rights groups and the exiled Dalai Lama have called on China to reverse the death sentences imposed recently on a prominent Tibetan monk and one of his followers.
The groups questioned the fairness of the brief, secret trial in which the men were convicted, charged with being responsible for a series of bombings in western China over the last several years. The bombings resulted in one death.
A court in Ganzi, an ethnic Tibetan region of Sichuan Province, sentenced the monk, Tenzin Deleg Rimpoche, to death with a two-year suspension. After two years the death sentence may still be carried out, but a suspended sentence is usually reduced to life in prison. The follower, Lobsang Dondrub, received a death sentence without a suspension.
The two men were arrested in April after a bomb went off in a square in Chengdu, Sichuan, wounding 12 people. A man identified only as Mr. Zhao and described as chief of the courts in Ganzi told Radio Free Asia in a telephone interview that Tenzin Deleg Rimpoche had confessed to involvement in that bombing and four others.
Mr. Zhao asserted that the monk had provided financial support to Mr. Lobsang, 28, who actually planted the bombs and who was captured near the scene of the blast in Chengdu.
The evidence against the men has not been revealed and only two relatives were allowed to observe the pro forma trial, where the men had no defense lawyers.
In a statement issued Friday, the Dalai Lama's government in exile called on the Chinese authorities "to halt the implementation of the sentence and to provide the two Tibetans with a fair trial."
An unidentified official told Human Rights in China, based in New York, that several days before the trial, which was held on Dec. 2, Sichuan officials had a meeting to discuss publicity about the sentences, which had already been decided on.
The Dalai Lama, who is reviled as a "separatist" by the government in Beijing but revered by many Tibetans, opposes violence in the quest for Tibetan autonomy, and incidents of bombing or sabotage in the Tibetan areas of China have been infrequent.