1/13/00 22:40 (New York)

HONG KONG, Jan 14 (AFP) - A Chinese air force general has been sentenced to 17 years in prison by a military tribunal for his role in the banned Falungong spiritual group, a Hong Kong-based rights organization said Friday.

Yu Changxin's sentence is one of the heaviest since the Communist Party outlawed the traditional Chinese mystical group last summer and follows an 18-year sentence meted out by a Beijing civil court last month to Falungong leader Li Chang.

Yu, 74, an instructor at the China Air Force Command Institute, was tried secretly by a Beijing military tribunal on January 6, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.

"Yu Changxin is an important military official with high authority who has performed outstanding service to the air force. Many retired military leaders expressed dissatisfaction to (Chinese President) Jiang Zemin sentencing this 74-year old to 17 years," the center said.

According to Yu's family, the general has appealed his sentence, it said.

Yu, who has followed the Falungong group since 1992, was secretly detained on July 1 last year for his alleged role in organizing an April 25 protest by some 10,000 Falungong followers around the Communist Party's Zhongnanhai headquarters in central Beijing.

He was convicted of "using a sect to destroy the implementation of the law," and "illegal management," while his family said he denied his involvement in organizing the April 25 demonstration, the center said.

He also allegedly helped Falungong spiritual leader Li Hongzhi, presently exiled in the the United States, to "illegally" print and publish Falungong material, while organizing the meteoric expansion of the group, the family said.

Yu was a leading air force pilot during the 1970s, but became noted for establishing theories and methods which resulted in a dramatic reduction in air safety mishaps, the center said. The Falungong group, established by Li Hongzhi in 1992, practices morning breathing and meditation exercises and has advocated high moral values and spiritual purety as the key to good health.

The amazing growth of the group, which boasts up to tens of millions of members in China, has often been attributed to a lack of morality in Chinese society during 20 years of economic reforms and rampant corruption among party and government officials.