Chinese policeman killed in Tibetan unrest

BEIJING - A Chinese policeman was shot dead while pursuing "an alleged riot leader" in an ethnically Tibetan part of western China, state media said on Wednesday, in a sign of continuing tension despite a crackdown.
The man, named as ethnic Tibetan officer Lama Cedain, died of his wounds on Monday morning, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing the public security authorities in the remote province of Qinghai, which borders Tibet.
It added that there had been a riot in Qinghai's Dari County incited by "a handful of people alleged to be insurgents seeking 'Tibetan independence,"' following anti-Chinese protests in Lhasa in March.
"After a month-long investigation, the police moved on Monday to arrest the suspected leader. The suspect resisted arrest and gunfire broke out," the report said.
"The officer was killed in the gun battle ... and other officers returned fire, killing the suspect," it added.
China has blamed Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and his government-in-exile for plotting the unrest, in which at least 18 "innocent civilians," according to Beijing, were killed by Tibetan mobs in the regional capital, Lhasa.
The Dalai Lama denies the charges, and insists he does not want independence.
The unrest had led to protests at and disruption of the global torch relay for the Beijing Summer Olympics, most notably in London, Paris and San Francisco.
On Tuesday, China announced that it had jailed 30 people for terms ranging from three years to life for their roles in the Tibet protests.
Human Rights Watch said it was concerned these people had not received fair trials.
"Guilty or innocent, these Tibetans (and any other defendant in China), are entitled to a fair trial," Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, wrote in an emailed statement.
"Instead, they were tried on secret evidence behind closed doors and without the benefit of a meaningful defense by lawyers they'd chosen."
But China defended the judicial process, saying the trial was open and had been attended by more than 200 people, including monks.
"If you break the law, you will be punished an accordance with it. It's the same in China as in any other country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu said.
She added that the government had dealt with the riots in a "restrained, lenient and magnanimous way."