BEIJING, May 30 (Xinhua) -- A migrant farmer was sentenced to death on Tuesday for robbing and killing a taxi driver and incurring two other deaths and seven injuries in downtown Beijing last year.

    Judges in the Beijing Municipal No. 2 Intermediate People's Court handed down the death penalty in the first ruling to Ai Xuqiang, a 32-year-old farmer from China's central province of Henan, and ordered him to pay more than one million yuan (125,000 U.S. dollars) in compensation.

    Ai was convicted of robbing a cab after stabbing the driver to death on Sept. 11 last year.

    He drove the cab along the bustling Wangfujing pedestrian street at high speed, hitting nine pedestrians, killing two and injuring seven, the court heard.

    Ai pleaded guilty to the charges, saying he committed the crimein the upmarket shopping district because his circumstances had driven him to bear a grudge against rich people.

    Ai left his hometown to work in the capital in 2000 after divorcing his wife and had since been working as a forklift driver. Enditem