The country’s highest court has upheld the death sentences of seven people in the far western region of Xinjiang who were convicted of murders and robberies aimed at raising money for a terrorist plot, state media reported Wednesday. Three others who had been sentenced to death were given a two-year reprieve, which often leads to life in prison. The attacks in Kashgar left nine people dead, the newspaper The Xinjiang Daily said. It did not cite the ethnicity of the defendants, but the names suggested that they were Uighurs, who make up a majority of Kashgar’s population. Calls to the People’s Intermediate Court in Kashgar rang unanswered Wednesday; the Supreme People’s Court typically does not release details of its rulings.

The killings reportedly took place in the months after ethnic rioting left nearly 200 people dead in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. Most of the victims were Han Chinese migrants whose presence has long been an irritant to the city’s Uighurs. Nearly two dozen people were sentenced to death for their role in the violence; Uighur exile groups say scores of others simply disappeared.