Beijing, China - China has executed up to 15 members of an underground Protestant church sect for the alleged murders of people in another group, a religious rights body and a lawyer said.
The Texas-based China Aid Association said in a statement three leaders of the Three Grade Servant church had been put to death in northeast China's Heilongjiang province over the past week.
It said another 12 members of the congregation had also been previously executed, bringing the total number to 15.
The China Aid Association said the case involved accusations that the Three Grade Servant Church was involved in the murder of members of another Christian cult, the Eastern Lightning.
A lawyer for the church leaders, Li Heping, confirmed court authorities told him Tuesday that Xu Shuangfu, Li Maoxing and Wang Jun had been executed.
"I felt very shocked, because lawyers and family members were not informed about the verdict before they were executed," Li told AFP on Wednesday.
Li said Xu was accused of homicide, fraud, illegal gathering and the illegal detention of others.
The lawyer said he knew of at least 12 church members who had been executed, some of them put to death as far back as 2004.
These people were among a total of 22 people who received death sentences in connection with the case, which involved 63 church members in all, he said.
The Christian group's activities have been secretive but the growth of its size has been extremely fast, with some estimating there were between 500,000 and one million adherents, Li said.
"But I can't say any more because this case is very sensitive," he said.
According to an earlier statement from China Aid quoting a court document, Xu and other church leaders were accused of having murdered 20 leaders of the Eastern Lighting cult between 2002 and 2004.
Xu and others were also accused of defrauding others of 32 million yuan (4.05 million dollars), according to the rights body.
But the US-based group said their confessions were extorted through severe torture and the funds they were accused of defrauding were donations from Christians.
According to Chinese law, a court cannot convict someone based on testimonies alone, especially when the confession was extracted through torture, Li said.
"I believe my client was tortured to confess," he said.
Chan Kim-kwong, of the Hong Kong Christian Council, said both Eastern Lightning and the Three Grade Servant church were considered cults which did not follow Christian teaching by orthodox churches, both inside and outside China.
There were reports the two sects had been feuding over the past few years and that both had kidnapped, tortured and injured adherents from the rival camp, he said.
"They are well known for their brutal ways ... so many mainstream Christian groups are terrified of them," he said.
"Whether this is a religious freedom issue and whether the killings were motivated by religion, that's the debatable issue."
The Heilongjiang People's High Court declined to comment Wednesday