A college student in northeast China's Liaoning Province received a three-year suspended sentence for trafficking in endangered Burmese Pythons, one of the six biggest snakes in the world, a local court said on Tuesday.

Wang Yu, 23, was sentenced to three years in jail with a three-year reprieve for illegally purchasing and selling endangered wild animals, according to a Dongling District People's Court ruling.

He was also fined 100,000 yuan (14,110 U.S. dollars).

Wang was charged with purchasing two Burmese Pythons, a national first class protected animal of China, over the internet for 52,000 yuan in September and November of 2006 and selling them to an amusement park. He was arrested last summer.

(Xinhua News Agency, March 18, 2008)