didn't specify by how much.

Zuo Feng, a visiting Communist party official, said Celil's life sentence had been reduced to 18 years after he took part in a re-education program.

"During his journey in prison he has participated in a lot of speaking and used his own case as educational material and talked to more than 200,000 people," Zuo said through a translator.

"So because of his activities, his sentence has been reduced to 18 years.

"Also he has visiting privileges from his family."

Chris MacLeod, the lawyer for Celil's family, said there is no way he would recommend Celil's wife travel to China to visit her husband, even though she was never a Chinese citizen. He said such a visit could only be part of "an official invitation sanctioned by both governments."

Celilhas been denied visits by Canadian consular officials for the last 11 years, he said.

Zuo was part of a delegation of Chinese government officials that had come to Canada to discuss economic, social and cultural developments in the country's westernmost Xinjiang region at a roundtable discussion with a select group of journalists.

That includes China's massive "One Belt, One Road" project that aims to connect the country to many parts of Asia, Europe and Africa by way of ports, rail lines and roads.

But the region has been the scene of a Uighur insurgency that has claimed hundreds of lives in recent years and sparked a hard crackdown by Beijing. A 2014 attack in a public market that killed 31 people was branded as a terrorist attack by Beijing.

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