A court in Tibet sentenced two Nepalese to death, close...

A court in Tibet sentenced two Nepalese to death, close on the heels of an outcry in Nepal over the same punishment awarded to two more Nepalese in an earlier case.
According to Nepal's ministry of foreign affairs in Kathmandu, the Intermediate Court of Xigatse in Tibet had convicted four Nepalese of smuggling arms and ammunition. Two of the men had been given the death sentence while the other two faced prison sentences of four and seven years.
The Nepalese foreign ministry said it had no immediate details about the four men, including their names and addresses. Nor could it throw light upon the crime for which they had been convicted.
While the Nepalese government asked its consul-general in Lhasa, capital of the Tibetan autonomous region, to obtain details of the case, it also urged the Chinese government to review the case and avert capital punishment.
The case came in the wake of a spate of protests in Nepal in July over the news that two small-time Nepalese businessmen, Ishwori Kumar Shrestha and Rabi Dahal, had been sentenced to death for drug smuggling.
The two men were arrested on the Nepal-Tibet border town of Khasa on May 30, 2003, after Chinese police reportedly found two sacks containing 29.85 kg of drugs in their possession. They were given the death sentence one year later while another Nepalese was given a jail term.