Wheelchair-bound migrant worker, Ji Zhongxing, was Tuesday found guilty of intentionally detonating a homemade bomb at Beijing airport [2] and sentenced to six years in jail. He is likely to appeal.

Ji had maintained throughout his trial that the bomb had gone off accidentally and that he never intended to harm anyone. And on Thursday, his lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, formally filed an appeal [3], which is scheduled to be heard by the Beijing Third Intermediate People’s Court.

Liu said he would also sue the Guangdong public security office in a bid to compel the office to make public its review of Ji’s original complaint. Ji claimed that eight years ago he had been severely beaten and left paralysed by local chengguan (城管) after he was stopped for illegally operating a motorbike taxi.

The chengguan were exonerated by a Dongguan court and Ji embarked on long campaign for justice that led him eventually to Beijing airport, where in a desperate bid to get publicity for his cause, he warned passers-by about the bomb he had brought with him from his hometown in Shandong.

Ji Zhongxing had already garnered widespread sympathy and support online and the relatively harsh sentence of the Beijing court Tuesday is likely to increase that support further.