Jail official gets 4 years in prison

Jail official gets 4 years in prison

JAKARTA (JP): A prison official whose derogatory remarks against Roman Catholicism sparked a communal riot in East Timor last September will soon be spending time behind bars.

The Maliana District Court in Bobonaro regency, East Timor, yesterday found Zakarias Sake, an official of the local correctional facility, guilty of blasphemy.

He was sentenced to four years imprisonment, Antara reported.

The correctional facility warden and six inmates who testified against him all said they heard him make the remarks, along with fellow staffer Sanusi Abubakar, who has already been sentenced to four years and 10 months imprisonment.

Zakarias pleaded innocent and insisted he only repeated remarks that Sanusi had made earlier.

News of their insults against the dominant religion in East Timor quickly spread to the rest of the town, and then to Dili and other major towns in the province.

With the situation in East Timor already tense almost all year round, the remarks sparked anger among East Timorese and they took to the streets, attacking houses of non-endemic residents and setting fire to mosques and Moslem schools.

Two people were killed in the riots and hundreds of migrants, including teachers assigned to East Timor schools, fled the province.

After hearing the verdict, Zakarias said he would think about appealing against the sentence. Antara did not say in which correctional facility Zakarias would serve his time. (emb)