Prosecutor seeks three years for 'heretic' Muslim cleric
Prosecutor seeks three years for 'heretic' Muslim cleric
Iman Dwianto Nugrohom The Jakarta Post, Surabaya
A prosecutor demanded on Thursday that a Malang district court
sentence a controversial Muslim cleric to three years in jail for
"despoiling" Islam. The defendant, Yusman Roy, had been proven
guilty of leading prayers in both Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic,
thus insulting Islam, which normally taught its followers to pray
in Arabic only, asserted prosecutor Irsadul Ikhfan during a trial
session on Thursday. The jail sentence sought by the prosecutor
was two years less than the maximum sentence under Article 156
(a) of the Criminal Code that carries a maximum sentence of five
years imprisonment.
The prosecutor believed that Roy's teaching had deviated from
Islamic tenets, as proven by letters from the Indonesian Ulema
Council (MUI), the highest authority on Islam in the country.
"The letters condemned the teaching," said the prosecutor.
Besides the letters, the prosecutor also presented other
evidence before the court, among others, video compact discs
(VCDs) that showed how Roy led his followers by praying first in
Arabic, and then translating into Bahasa Indonesia.
Responding to the prosecutor, Roy, a former boxer and convert
from Christianity, said that the accusation was baseless. He
believed that what he had done was right. In providing Indonesian
translations of Arabic verses during prayers he was helping
people understand the meaning behind the Arabic verses, he said.
Roy's lawyer from the Legal Aid Institute (LBH), Deddy
Priambudi, believed that his client was innocent. All the
witnesses testified in favor of him and he was confident that
Roy, who is the chairman of I'tikaf Jama'ah Ngaji Lelaku Islamic
Boarding School, would escape a jail sentence.
One witness, Ulil Abshar Abdalla, who is also the coordinator
of the Liberal Islam Network (JIL), earlier commented that Roy's
teaching had not deviated from Islam. "The problem can be settled
though dialog so that it is not necessary to resort to legal
action," said Ulil.
Police arrested Roy on May 7 this year after certain local
residents conveyed reports to police that he was performing
bilingual prayers at his Islamic boarding school in Malang. Roy,
who has some 300 followers, led the ritual prayers and provided
Indonesian translations for the Arabic verses used in the
prayers. Ritual prayers, called solat, are carried out five times
a day as prescribed in the Koran.