Three more death sentences in Chinaethnic riot trials
Nearly 200 people were killed when Muslim Uighurs and members of China’s dominant Han ethnicity turned on one another in the streets of the regional capital, Urumqi. First, Uighurs assaulted random people in the overwhelmingly Han city. Days later, Han vigilantes retaliated in Uighur neighbourhoods, in the country’s worst communal violence in decades.
The official Xinhua News Agency said three new defendants were sentenced to death by the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court and three more were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve – a penalty usually commuted to life in prison.