China sentences 3 more to death for Xinjiang riots

A local woman crosses a street as Chinese security personnel march through the centre of Urumqi in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region September 7, 2009.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court sentenced three more people to death on Friday for murder and other crimes during ethnic rioting in the far western Xinjiang region, state media reported.

Friday's sentences followed five death sentences handed down on Thursday. China has already executed nine other people convicted in connection with the riots, in which almost 200 people were killed.

Judging by their names, two of the three people given the death penalty on Friday appeared to be Uighurs, a Turkic minority that calls Xinjiang its homeland.

The third appeared to be a Han Chinese, who state news agency Xinhua said had beaten a Uighur to death during revenge attacks by Han two days after Uighurs rioted in the regional capital of Urumqi.

More trials connected with the rioting will be heard by the court later, the report said.

The July 5 riots, which began with protests against attacks on Uighur workers in South China, killed 197 people, most of them Han Chinese. More than 1,600 were wounded, according to official figures.

Energy-rich Xinjiang, strategically located in central Asia, has been struck in recent years by bombings, attacks and riots blamed by Beijing on Uighur separatists demanding an independent "East Turkistan".

Many Muslim Uighurs resent government restrictions on their religion and culture and a massive influx of Han Chinese settlers that have in some areas reduced them to a minority.

(Reporting by Yu Le and Lucy Hornby; Editing by Alex Richardson)