BEIJING (AP) - Flanked by police officers in a brightly lit courtroom, four suspected members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual sect were sentenced to prison Friday for organizing a mass suicide attempt last year on Tiananmen Square, state media and a court official said.
A mother and her 12-year-old daughter died in the group self-immolation. China used the event to support its claim that Falun Gong is an evil cult and to justify a brutal crackdown.
Beijing's No. 1 Intermediate Court found the four guilty of murder for ``organizing, masterminding, instigating and assisting'' Falun Gong followers in setting themselves afire, the Xinhua News Agency said.
Liu Yunfang, 57, a former factory worker, was sentenced to life in prison for producing pamphlets teaching that Falun Gong followers could reach spiritual fulfillment by burning themselves, Xinhua said.
Another suspected sect follower, Wang Jindong, 50, was convicted of distributing Liu's pamphlets and given a 15-year sentence, Xinhua said.
Two others, Liu Xiuqin, 34, and Xue Hongjun, 49, were sentenced to seven and 10 years respectively for helping organize the incident, Xinhua said.
Liu Baorong, a woman tried as a conspirator, was not sentenced, Xinhua said. It cited her lesser involvement, cooperation with prosecutors and ``acknowledgment of her crime committed under Falun Gong's incitement, bullying and mind control,'' Xinhua said.
A court official, who gave only her surname, Lu, confirmed the sentences but declined to give further details.
Of those sentenced, authorities said, only Wang Jindong actually set himself on fire in the Jan. 23 suicide attempt. He was one of five people who doused themselves with gasoline and ignited it.
After the self immolations, state television repeatedly aired gory footage captured by security cameras in a campaign to galvanize public opinion against the group.
Falun Gong drew millions of followers during the 1990s with its blend of light exercise, meditation and the Buddhist- and Taoist-inspired teachings of its founder, former government grain clerk Li Hongzhi.
China banned the group in June 1999, apparently fearing its size and organizational ability could challenge the Communist Party's monopoly on political power.
Until the incident, Falun Gong followers had staged protests against the ban almost daily in Tiananmen Square. Such demonstrations have largely died out since a renewed crackdown on followers, and thousands have been detained in labor camps. Rights groups claim torture and psychological abuse are used routinely to make followers renounce the group, though China denies harming sect believers.
On Friday, state television's main evening news broadcast showed the accused, wearing civilian clothes and flanked by police officers, as they listened to their sentences. Wang Jindong's face and lips were scarred from his burn wounds but he appeared otherwise healthy. Liu Xiuqin smiled slightly and appeared to be speaking softly to herself.
Newspaper reports said Liu Yunfang claimed that, while doing the group's meditation techniques, he saw his spirit setting itself ablaze on the square and ``his `Buddha body' spraying fire from the mouth.''
Xue told other followers in the central city of Kaifeng about Liu's vision and, with others, organized the group suicide on Lunar New Year's Eve, the reports said.
Liu had planned to take part but changed his mind, they said. Police who detained him on the square reported finding two bottles of gasoline strapped to his body.
State media have offered contradicting accounts of the incident, and foreign reporters have had no access to the victims or alleged organizers.
Falun Gong representatives in the United States, where their founder lives, claim the five could not have been genuine practitioners because the sect's teachings forbid all killing, including suicide.