China jails Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo's relative for 11 yrs

A Chinese court has sentenced the brother-in-law of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in jail on charges of fraud.

The lawyer defending Liu Hui said the jail term was out of proportion to the alleged offence.

According to the BBC, the lawyer added that the case should have been treated as a civil dispute, not a criminal matter.

The court in Huairou, north-east of Beijing, convicted Hui, a manager in a property company, of defrauding a man of three million yuan along with a colleague.

Xiaobo was already in jail when he won the Nobel prize in 2010 for campaigning for peaceful democratic change in China.

Since then his wife, Liu Xia, sister of Hui, has been held under strict house arrest in what she said is an official vendetta against his family.

Xiaobo was jailed in 2009 for helping to draft a manifesto, calling for political change. He is currently serving 11 years in jail for inciting the subversion of state power.