A court in China on Tuesday sentenced a forklift driver to death for killing a protester in an incident that fuelled unrest across the Inner Mongolia region over resource exploitation, state media said.

The court convicted Sun Shuning of deliberately striking and killing Yan Wenlong with his forklift on May 15 during protests over a coal mine that local residents charged was polluting the area, the official Xinhua news agency said.

"The act was utterly cruel, the crime very serious and the consequences extremely bad," Xinhua quoted the court in the northern city of Xilinhot as saying after sentencing Sun to death without reprieve.

Earlier this month the same court sentenced a coal truck driver to death after he ran over and killed an ethnic Mongol herder -- the incident that triggered the protests across the restive region -- the report said.

Li Lindong was sentenced to death for the May 10 killing of the herder named Mergen that led to street protests against resource exploitation and environmental damage in the vast region of rolling plains and deserts.

Lu Xiangdong, who was in the truck with Li, was given a life sentence in the six-hour trial, while two others who helped the defendants flee the scene were sentenced to three years for obstructing justice, it said.

The four convicted over the death of Mergen said they would appeal against their sentences, Xinhua said previously.

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