ASSOCIATED PRESS, Thursday February 3, 2005 9:36 PM
Wife of Maluku separatist leader sentenced to two years in jail
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Feb. 3 (AP) - The wife of an exiled separatist leader in
Indonesia's violence-wracked Maluku province was sentenced by a court Thursday to
two years in jail on rebellion charges, while his daughter was acquitted in a separate
trial.
The separatist leader, Alex Manuputty, head of the mostly Christian Maluku
Sovereignty Front, known as FKM, was sentenced in absentia to three years in jail
last year after he fled to the United States, where he is living in Los Angeles.
His wife, Holly Manuputty, and their 32-year-old daughter, Christin, were arrested in
April 2003 after holding a small secessionist parade in Ambon, Maluku's capital,
triggering days of clashes between Muslims and Christians in which 40 people were
killed and hundreds of homes were burned.
"The defendant, Holly Manuputty, has been proven guilty of supporting a struggle to
separate from Indonesia by actively taking part in FKM's activities," a three-member
panel of judges said in Thursday's ruling.
However, a separate panel of judges in Ambon, 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) east of
Jakarta, ruled that Christin was not guilty because there was no evidence linking her
to the group's activities.
Their trials began in July last year. Prosecutors accused them of being key members
of the FKM, which wants to set up an independent state, the South Maluku Republic.
The FKM has no armed wing and has little support.
Indonesia's government is facing separatist rebellions in the western province of Aceh
and in Papua in the country's far east.
Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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