China found Pu Zhiqiang, one of its most prominent civil rights lawyers, guilty of "provoking trouble" and "inciting ethnic hatred" on Tuesday.
Pu, who is seen by supporters as a champion of free speech, had pleaded not guilty to all charges, but was expecting a sentence of up to eight years in prison. However, the court handed down a three-year suspended sentence, which means Pu could be released to go home, the state-run broadcaster announced on Weibo.
With the suspended sentence, Pu may be able to avoid jail time if he doesn't violate the terms of probation or has other charges brought against him over the three years, National University of Singapore law school professor Wang Jiang Yu explained, speaking to Singapore paper Lianhe Zaobao. [link in Chinese]
Pu had already spent 19 months in detention since his arrest. The charges against him relate to seven Weibo posts he made, in which he criticised a number of policies by the ruling Communist Party and its actions against the Muslim Uighur minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang.
The lawyer has also represented high-profile dissidents like artist Ai Weiwei.
During Pu's trial last week, police roughhoused protesters who had gathered outside the courthouse in support of the lawyer.
They pushed foreign journalists away, and tried to disrupt a speech given by U.S. embassy diplomat Dan Biers, who was reading from a statement outside.
The Chinese government has long controlled major media outlets in the country, and has tried controlling social media as well. Weibo posts are frequently subjected to state censors, which manually clean and sweep the Twitter-like microblogging platform for posts it deems offensive.