A court in Northwest China's Qinghai Province Friday sentenced a man to 13 years in jail for goading a monk to self-immolate and inciting the split of the state.

The Intermediate People's Court of the Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture convicted the defendant Phagpa, 27, of intentional homicide and inciting split of the state, after an open trial Friday morning.

He was found to have incited Drolma Je, a monk at the Dowa Monastery of Tongren County, Huangnan prefecture, to self-immolate for "freedom and independence of the Tibetan ethnic group."

The self-immolation did not occur only because a sister in law of Drolma Je discovered his attempt and dissuaded him from doing so, the court found.