China courtroom bomb kills five

BEIJING, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Five people were killed and 22 injured after a man set off a bomb in a courtroom in far western China, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday.

The explosion rocked a courthouse in Minle County in Gansu province on Friday morning, Xinhua said, citing local police.

A 62-year-old farmer, Qian Wenzhao, walked into a meeting room of the county courthouse and ignited explosives.

Two people died on the spot, and three died later in hospital, Xinhua said. The dead included the president of the court and a senior county official, as well as Qian himself.

In 2004, a court ordered Qian's son to pay his ex-wife 71,000 yuan ($8,800) as part of a divorce settlement, Xinhua reported. The son paid a fraction of the amount before fleeing.

In May 2005, the Minle court sent officers to detain the son in Xinjiang, west of Gansu province. On the way back he killed himself.

In November, the Minle court paid Qian 98,000 yuan for the loss of his son, and Qian said he was "satisfied," Xinhua reported.

But later Qian demanded the court also address his demands for his son's property in Xinjiang, as well as the house of the son's ex-wife, who had died in October.

Ding wanted to "vent his resentment", Xinhua said, but it did not offer a specific reason.

Discontented or disturbed attackers in China have used mining explosives or fertiliser devices in previous bombings.

In August, a farmer with lung cancer set off a bomb on a bus in Fuzhou in southeastern Fujian province, wounding 31 people, and in July a murder suspect set off a bomb in a shopping mall in northeastern China, injuring 47 people.

A man set off a bomb on a bus in the western Xinjiang region in January 2005, killing 11 people.

On Saturday, Xinhua reported an explosion in a coal mine in Xinjiang in November was set off deliberately in the Beitaishan Coal Mine, killing 11 people.