Yang Shicheng, a farmer from Baoxing County in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, has been sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment for killing a giant panda.

According to the local court, Yang Shicheng shot and skinned a giant panda cub in the mountains in Baoxing County of Sichuan Province in October 1999, and later sold the fur at the price of 200 yuan (about US$24) to Gao Hongyou from Lushan County of Sichuan.

Gou Chengxue, also from Lushan County, bought the fur from Gao for 2,000 yuan (about US$241), and was caught by police when trying to sell it at an even higher price in Chongqing in November 2002.

Yang will also be deprived of his political rights for one year and fined 10,000 yuan (about US$1,207).

Another five people, including Gou, involved in the illegal transaction of the giant panda fur were also given prison sentences of 12 years.

(Xinhua News Agency July 14, 2003)