Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=01/27/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=CHINA TIBET EXECUTION (L)

NUMBER=2-298839

BYLINE=LETA HONG FINCHER

DATELINE=BEIJING

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: China executes a Tibetan for bomb attacks it says were meant

to promote Tibetan independence. As V-O-A's Beijing correspondent Leta

Hong Fincher reports, human rights groups question the fairness of his

trial and that of another Tibetan sentenced to death.

TEXT: Officials in China's southwestern province of Sichuan say Lobsang

Dhondup was executed on Sunday, immediately after a court upheld his

original death sentence.

The court also rejected the appeal of a suspended death sentence by

Tibetan Buddhist leader Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche. In China, such sentences

are likely to be commuted to life imprisonment.

The two Tibetans were tried on charges of promoting independence for

Tibet and setting off several bombs in Sichuan Province that killed one

person and injured others. The bomb attacks took place over the past

two years. Sichuan lies west of Tibet and is heavily populated with

ethnic Tibetans.

The death sentences provoked an outcry from human rights groups and the

international community.

Bruce Van Voorhis, a spokesman for the Asian Human Rights

Commission in Hong Kong, wonders about the speed with which the death

sentence was carried out and the fairness of the trials of both men.

/// VOORHIS ACT ///

As soon as the verdict has been given, often times prisoners are taken

to the execution field, and sometimes it's a public execution, and

people are executed almost immediately. Especially in political cases

like this one apparently is, there are very serious concerns about

whether the person received a fair trial or not.

///END ACT///

A senior U-S human rights envoy also raised the case of the two Tibetans

during talks with officials in Beijing last month, but China rejected

his call for clemency.

Since the mid-1990s, a number of militants opposed to Chinese Communist

rule have carried out bombings in Tibet and nearby areas.

Chinese troops have sought to quell religious and political uprisings in

Tibet by imposing an often-brutal rule, which began when troops from

communist China marched into the region in 1950. (Signed)

NEB/HK/LHF