China jails 8 Tibetan monks for bomb blast

Eight Buddhist monks convicted of bombing a government building in Tibet during an anti-government uprising in March have been sentenced to

prison, two of them for life, a judge said on Tuesday.

The monks were sentenced at the People's Court in Chamdo, a Tibetan prefecture, after being convicted of setting off a bomb at the building in Gyanbe township, said Gang Weilai, the judge who presided over the case.

Gyanbe is about 1,375 kilometres east of Lhasa, Tibet's capital, where peaceful protests against Chinese rule erupted into violence in March.

Gyurmey Dhondup and Kalsang Tsering were sentenced to life in prison while the others received sentences of between five and 15 years, Gang said in a telephone interview. He said the monks did not appeal their sentences.

"We were first going to charge them with the crime of separating the nation, but eventually the charge was changed to the crime of causing an explosion," Gang said, declining to explain the decision. Gang referred all questions to the Supreme Court, the country's highest court. Telephones were not answered at the court today afternoon.

Mo Shaoping, a Beijing-based lawyer, said separatism is considered a threat to national security and would usually be a more serious charge, although it depended on the specifics of the case.

Chinese state media have said eight monks from the Tongxia monastery in eastern Tibet confessed to planting a homemade bomb that exploded at a government building in Gyanbe township on March 23. No casualties or damage were reported in the blast.

China launched a massive crackdown in Tibet and a broad swath of Tibetan-inhabited regions in the country's west after demonstrations that began peacefully on March 10 among Buddhist monks in Lhasa spiraled into violence four days later.

Beijing claims the protests were part of a violent campaign by Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and his supporters to throw off Chinese rule in Tibet and sabotage the Beijing Olympics in August.

The Dalai Lama has denied involvement in violent acts and said he only wants greater autonomy for the remote mountain region.