A leading lawmaker has described members of a religious sect in Siberia living under brutal, slavelike conditions and warned that the group may be planning a mass suicide.


Vitaly Savitsky, deputy head of the State Duma's committee on public and religious organizations, and a delegation of Russian officials recently returned from a visit to Minusinsk, the headquarters of the so-called Vissarion sect.


The sect, with 40 recruitment points across the former Soviet Union, reportedly has several thousand members.


"The sect members looked emaciated. Many are physically ill, some mentally," Savitsky told a news conference. "The people are not allowed to wash, to ask for medical help, to use medicines or vaccines."


Savitsky described sect leader Sergei Torop, alias Vissarion, as "not a completely healthy person mentally."


Torop, a former police officer, spent some time at a local psychiatric hospital before establishing the Vissarion sect, he said.


The delegation said Torop targeted wealthy people for recruitment, then convinced them to sell their property and donate the returns to the sect.


The sect followers were living as many as 12 to one apartment in the central Siberian city, about 500 kilometers east of Novosibirsk, slept on the floor and were forced to work for free, Savitsky said.


The official goal of Vissarion, or the Church of the Last Testament, is to build "the city of the sun" on nearby Lake Temir-Kul.


Only one house has been built so far, and Torop is living in it.


The delegation warned that once Torop runs out of funds, he will probably organize a mass suicide to prevent revolt by his followers.