Bangkok - Thailand's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 50-year jail sentence for a former Buddhist abbot accused of raping nine underage hill-tribe girls kept in his care.

Chamlong Polseu, 65, once a popular meditation guru who went by the clerical name Pawana Phuttho, was initially sentenced to 160 years in prison for raping and molesting the underage girls, but the jail term was reduced to 50 years.

On Thursday the Supreme Count upheld the 50-year jail sentence, which Chamlong had appealed, The Nation online news service reported.

Chamlong was arrested in 1995 after hill-tribe girls living in the dormitory he had built for them in a Buddhist temple accused him of raping and molesting them.

He was defrocked and sentenced to jail.

Six of Chamlong's female followers were also sentenced to jail terms ranging from three to 10 years for complicity in the child abuse case.