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July 6, 2006
Indonesia: Islamists Who Killed Hindu, Assuming He Was Christian, Jailed
News from Associated Press via Dow Jones Newswire states that two Muslim men were sentenced to nine years' jail yesterday. They had stabbed a Hindu man after dragging him into a car in Poso in Central Sulawesi in 2001.
Their victim, Kushariyanto, was killed because they assumed he was a Christian, and at that time, Poso was in a sectarian conflict, which had lasted from 2001 to 2002, in which 1,000 people, mainly Christians, were killed. The fighting was an overspill of the wider Moluccan War, which was waged by the Islamist group Lashkar Jihad. That war saw 9,000 people killed between 1999 and 2002.
In Poso at the end of last last year, following the beheading of three schoolgirls on October 29, sectarian violence against Christians began again.
The two men who were on trial for killing Kushariyanto were Andi Ipong and Muhamad Yusuf Asapa. They had been arrested last year on Poso by anti-terror police.
Their trial took place at Central Jakarta District Court because the situation on Poso is tense, as we reported in May.
Judge Kushariyanto said that witness statements proved that the two men had stabbed Kushiyanto in the heart. The two men's lawyer said that they would appeal, because no direct proof of their involvement had been presented in court.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 6, 2006 5:21 AM
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