China commuted the death sentence imposed on a Tibetan monk, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche

China commuted the death sentence imposed on a Tibetan monk, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, to a life term, state media reported. Tenzin Delek had been given a suspended death sentence in 2002 after being convicted of involvement in a series of bomb blasts in an ethnic Tibetan area of south-western China in a trial Tibetan activists and rights groups said was flawed.
Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising, and Beijing remains sensitive to any sparks of Tibetan nationalism or separatism.
"The court commuted the death penalty ... to life term because he did not intentionally violate the relevant law specifications again during the execution period of the past two-year reprieve," the official Xinhua news agency said of the verdict, handed down by the Higher People's Court of Sichuan Province.
The monk was deprived of his political rights for life, it said.
China executed Lobsang Dhondup, another Tibetan tried alongside Tenzin Delek, in January 2003, despite protests from international human rights groups and diplomats.