OSLO (TIP): The Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Thursday that China bears a “heavy responsibility” for the “premature” death+ of 2010 Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.

The prominent democracy advocate, 61, died while still in custody following a battle with cancer. Officials ignored international pleas to let him spend his final days free and abroad. Germany and the US had offered to take him in for treatment.

“We find it deeply disturbing that Liu Xiaobo was not transferred to a facility where he could receive adequate medical treatment before he became terminally ill ,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, who chairs the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said in a statement. “The Chinese government bears heavy responsibility for his premature death.”

Liu was transferred from prison to a heavily guarded hospital to be treated for late-stage liver cancer more than a month ago. (AFP)