Tibetan lama Tenzin Delek Rinpoche dies in Chinese prison

Tibetan lama Tenzin Delek Rinpoche has died in prison 13 years into serving a sentence for what human rights groups say were false charges that he was involved in a bombing in a public park. He was 65.

Relatives were informed of the death Sunday, New York-based Students for a Free Tibet said Monday. 

Police in Sichuan province in southwest China confirmed the death but declined to give further details.

Tenzin Delek was arrested in 2002 in relation to <g data-gr-id="23">an April</g> 3, 2002, blast in Chengdu city that injured three people. He was sentenced to death on charges of crimes of terror and incitement of separatism a few months later. His death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2005, and later to 20 years’ imprisonment.

He was being held in a prison in Dazhu county, in Sichuan province, which borders the Tibetan region.

A woman from the Public Security Bureau in Dazhu confirmed that Tenzin Delek died Sunday. She refused to identify herself.