A court in the southwestern province of Sichuan on Monday convicted the lama for "intentional homicide" and said he had prevented the wounded monk from getting medical treatment, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The monk, Phuntsog, died in hospital after setting himself on fire on March 16, triggering protests and prompting a clampdown by authorities around the monastery in Sichuan's mountainous Aba prefecture.

The court's verdict contradicted earlier assertions by rights groups that monks at the Kirti monastery had rescued Phuntsog from police who began to beat him after extinguishing the flames.

As a court prepared to try two more monks on Tuesday, Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch said the cases were politically motivated.

"This is a patently unjust verdict at the outcome of a purely political prosecution," he told AFP.

"It comes against a background of unprecedented persecution against the monastery of Kirti, from where the government has already taken into arbitrary detention dozens of monks."

Kirti monastery has remained extremely tense since security forces shot dead several protesters in March 2008, Bequelin said.

"Sentencing a monk who appears to have only attempted to protect Phuntsog after his solitary act only compounds the agony for Kirti monks," said Kate Saunders, of the International Campaign for Tibet.

"By doing so the Chinese government aims to deflect attention from the real reasons for the self-immolation, which was an expression of anguish and sacrifice due to intense repression including new measures to suppress religious practice in Tibetan areas."

Xinhua reported that two more monks linked to the self-immolation would face trial Tuesday after the Monday jailing of a monk named Drongdru.

The dead monk was a disciple and nephew of Drongdru, who kept him hidden for 11 hours before he was taken to hospital where he later died, it said.

During the trial, Drongdru, 46, pleaded guilty to the charges, voiced regret for his role and declined his right to appeal, Xinhua said.

Calls by AFP to the Sichuan court went unanswered.

Phuntsog was the second monk at Kirti to set himself on fire since the anti-Chinese riots in Lhasa of March 2008, the bloodiest in Tibet in 20 years.

Xinhua said he was just 16 years old at the time of his death, though reports at the time varied, but the International Campaign for Tibet put the monk's age at 20.

Earlier this month, another monk died by self-immolation in Sichuan.

The decision was made at the same time as the inauguration of Baburam Bhattarai of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) as the Himalayan country's prime minister.

The oath of office was administered by Nepalese President Ram Baran Yadav who earlier this month accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal.

Khanal stepped down after only seven months in office and under increasing pressure from all parties, including his own CPN (Unified Marxist-Leninist). He cleared the way for someone who could galvanize all parties into agreeing a constitution as Nepal moves from being a kingdom to an elected parliamentary democracy.

A succession of Nepalese governments have foundered on the constitution issue as well as how to bring into mainstream political and social life up to 19,000 former Maoist combatants, many of whom remain in remote camps.

Around 15,000 people were killed and up to 150,000 people displaced in fighting by the Maoist's Communist Party of Nepal who wanted to set up a republic.

But Maoist rebels ended their decade-long armed struggle in 2006. Their political leadership joined other political parties in trying to create a more modern country out of the kingdom, a poor and isolated nation high the Himalayan Mountains with India to the south and China to the north.

The peace accord of November 2006, monitored by U.N. mission in Nepal, allowed the political parties to abolish the monarchy in early 2008 and work on writing a new constitution.

Before his resignation earlier this month, Khanal was hoping to agree to bring the former rebels into Nepal's army under a new directorate aimed at rescue and relief operations, industrial security, guarding forests and general duties to help national infrastructure projects.

The directorate would also have combat duties.

Khanal was hoping to have the army set up registration points in towns and villages by the end of August to begin the integration process.

The Assembly, in which no political party has a majority, is noted more for political squabbling than practical actions.

Bhattarai, 57, has a doctorate degree from New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. His party, led by Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, has the largest number of seats but without a majority.

Bhattarai was finance minister in the first Maoist government led by Prachanda after the 2008 elections.

"He is not only popular among the middle class, but has also proven himself as the leader of the workers and peasants," Prachanda said in praising Bhattarai.

A report by the BBC said Bhattarai is "a communist ideologue," a trained town-planning architect and a taciturn politician who has had run-ins with Prachanda. He clashed with Prachanda, arguing against civil disobedience and other forms of so-called people's revolts as a way of settling constitutional issues.

In this month's election, Bhattarai defeated his nearest rival, Ram Chandra Poudel of the Nepali Congress Party, by 340 to 235 votes, Nepalnews.com reported.

Bhattarai's party has 237 seats in the 595-member Constituent Assembly.

The new prime minister was supported by the United Democratic Madhesi Front and some of the fringe parties.

Over the next several days, Bhattarai will be working with leaders of the smaller parties that supported him to decide who gets which government posts.