Beijing airport explosion man jailed

Ji's case has drawn widespread public sympathy online

A man who detonated an explosive device at Beijing International Airport has been jailed by a Chinese court for six years.

No-one was killed in the 20 July blast, although the man - wheelchair-user Ji Zhongxing - suffered injuries and was taken to hospital.

He said he had been paralysed after being beaten by local security agents in 2005.

The Beijing blast was an apparent attempt to draw attention to his case.

The sentence was announced on the verified microblog of the Beijing Chaoyang District Court.

At his trial in September, Ji said he did not mean to detonate the home-made device and that he regretted his actions.

The case sparked public sympathy, with Ji seen by many as representative of the most marginalised members of society.

The 34-year-old from central Shandong province had been petitioning the authorities over his lower limb paralysis, which he said was caused by a beating from several security officers in Dongguan, in southern China's Guangdong province, in 2005.

According to his lawyer, Ji was unhappy that his complaints against the authorities had not been dealt with.

"[Ji] used all normal ways to complain but this wasn't solved," Liu Xiaoyuan told the BBC in September.