BEIJING (AFP) - China has laid out the charges against four suspects captured after a brutal railway station attack that killed 29 people and injured 143 earlier this month, officials said.

Eight members of what Beijing labelled a "terrorist gang" carried out the stabbing spree at Kunming railway station in south-western China, with four of them killed at the scene.

The remainder were formally arrested for crimes of "organising, leading, taking part in a terrorist attack and intentional homicide," Yunnan provincial procuratorate said on Saturday.

Three of those in police custody were captured two days after the attack, while a fourth, a wounded women, was held by police at the scene.

China has blamed separatists from its restive far-western region of Xinjiang - home to the mainly Muslim Uighur minority - for what it describes as an act of terror, with state media dubbing the incident "China's 9/11".

The four captives are expected to be sentenced to death, given that authorities in China appear to have already apportioned blame. Chinese courts are controlled by the ruling Communist Party.