Indonesia's 'Archangel Gabriel' messenger jailed for two years

AFP/June 30, 2006

Jakarta -- An Indonesian cult leader who has claimed to be the messenger of the Archangel Gabriel was sentenced to two years in jail after being found guilty of insulting Islam, a court official said on Friday.

Lia Aminuddin, a 58-year-old former florist, is the self-appointed head of the God's Kingdom of Eden cult based on the outskirts of Jakarta, which at its peak had several hundred members.

The Central Jakarta court delivered their verdict for Aminuddin on Thursday, court official Agus said.

He said that chief judge Lief Sujifullah found Aminuddin "guilty of blasphemy because her actions had denigrated" Islam.

The court found that the defendant had practiced prayers in a language other than Arabic, allowed her followers to eat pork and invented her own interpretations of the Holy Koran, he said.

Lawyers for Aminuddin walked out of the trial to protest that an individual was being prosecuted for their beliefs.

Prosecutors had sought a five-year sentence for Aminuddin.

A team of 30 lawyers from the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute had defended Aminuddin, dubbed "Lia Eden" by local press, because they believed that her case was part of a trend for authorities here to prosecute Muslims considered deviant.

One of her lawyers, Asfinawati, said that her client would lodge an appeal because "we believe that somebody's religious belief cannot and should not be blindly prosecuted" by the state.

An estimated 88 percent of Indonesians are Muslim and most practice a moderate strain of the religion, often incorporating animist and Hindu beliefs.