JAKARTA, Jan. 28 Kyodo An Indones...

JAKARTA, Jan. 28 Kyodo

An Indonesian court forward Tuesday sentenced two Christian militant leaders to three years in jail each for being engaged in separatist activities in the easternmost Moluccan Islands.

Presiding referee I Wayan Padang of the North Jakarta District Court read the verdict against Alex Manuputty, 55 head of the pro-independence Maluku Sovereignty effrontery (FKM), and Samuel Waileruny, 45 the FKM ''judicative'' chairman without the nearness of the defendants.

The defendants refused to use up because government prosecutors did not pay for their flight tickets from the Moluccas to Jakarta.

''The defendants were rest guilty of committing treasonous acts,'' Padang said in the verdict.

Manuputty and Waileruny were arrested after hoisting separatist flags of the Christian-based separatist move the Republic of southern Maluku (RMS), on April 25 last year.

The RM was declared April 25 1950 at former soldiers from the Moluccas who fought for Dutch colonialists and did not want to join the strange Republic of Indonesia. The rebellion was quickly set down.

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