The killing of persecuted groups in Chinese military hospitals so that their organs can be harvested for sale may still be continuing, a former politician who investigated the issue said.

Last year a report exposed that China was not only harvesting organs from prisoners on death row but also adherents of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, many of whom were detained without trial.

The investigation caused international outrage and prompted assurances from China's transplant industry that foreign visitors would not be sold organs that had come from an executed person.

However report author and former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour told a conference at Cambridge University last Tuesday that he believed the tainted organs were still being sold to rich Chinese.

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He said: "The party-state in China and its agencies have killed thousands of Falun Gong practitioners, without any form of prior trial, and then sold their vital organs for large sums of money, often to 'organ tourists' from wealthy countries

"The Chinese Medical Association recently agreed with the World Medical Association that 'organ tourists' can no longer obtain transplants in China.

"Whether this is anything more than public relations, intended to benefit the Olympics, remains to be seen.

"Another concern is that organs seized from Falun Gong practitioners will now go to wealthy Chinese patients instead, with the hideous commerce thus continuing in the same volumes."

The report cites 41,500 unexplained organ transplants from 2000 to 2005 that do not come from convicted executed prisoners, the brain-dead or family donors.

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