by H. Asher Bolande

BEIJING, Aug 23 (AFP) - An intermediate court in the Tibetan capital has sentenced dissident Shol Dawa and a Lhasa businessman to long jail terms for espionage, the Tibet Information Network (TIN) reported Saturday.

Shol Dawa, 60, and Topgyal, 58, were found guilty of compiling a list of current and released Tibetan political prisoners "to be sent abroad as a report to the Dalai clique," the London-based group said in a fax statement, citing a court document.

Shol Dawa was sentenced to nine years in prison, while Topgyal received a six-year sentence at the August 8 trial.

The term "Dalai clique" is used by Chinese authorities to refer to allegedly separatist followers of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.

The defendants, "with the objective of overturning the socialist system and the people's democratic dicatorship, actively accepted a mission especially appointed by foreign enemies, actively gathering various kinds of intelligence ... and engaging in criminal activities that endangered state security," the court document said.

Shol Dawa and Topgyal put together the list of prisoners' names in 1993 by interviewing two recently released political prisoners, Dodrup Dorje and Ratoe Dawa, it said.

They were not arrested until 1995, however.

Shol Dawa was rounded up with at least 11 other activists in August that year to prevent disruption of 30th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, TIN said.

A tailor and well-known Lhasa activist, he had in the past spent six years in prison on two convictions of "counter-revolutionary propaganda," it said.

Western critics have charged China with implementing repressive Tibet policies, bringing about cultural genocide in the Himalayan region.

US Congressman Frank Wolf, after returning from a covert visit to Tibet, said earlier this week that Beijing was using mass arrests and brutal means to "swallow" Tibet.

"The clock is ticking fast for Tibet. If nothing is done, a country, its people, religion and culture will continue to grow fainter and could one day disappear," he said.

A party of German parliamentarians will visit Lhasa next week to examine the human rights situation in the region, TIN said.

Chinese troops took control of Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama fled the country eight years later after a failed anti-Chinese uprising.

He has since headed a Tibetan government-in-exile in India and waged a peaceful international campaign for Tibetan self-determination. Beijing routinely denounces him as a top enemy of the nation.