Kuala Lumpur, Aug 13 (IANS) Two Malaysian brothers were Friday jailed for five years for burning a church earlier this year.
The Metro Tabernacle Church was one of the four Christian shrines attacked in January.
The series of attacks was linked to the High Court’s decision Dec 31, to allow a Catholic publication to use the word ‘Allah’ in its Bahasa Malaysia section.
Sessions Court judge S.M. Komathy Suppiah found the two brothers – Raja Muhammad Faizal Raja Ibrahim, 24, and Raja Muhammad Idzham Raja Ibrahim, 22 – guilty of the offence and sentenced them to five years in jail.
The judge rejected their claim that their injuries were sustained in a barbecue.
A forensic expert had told the court that the burning was not an accident and that attempt was ‘deliberate’.
The accused were charged with committing mischief with fire, with the intention to destroy the church at Desa Melawati, Wangsa Maju Jan 7, Star Online website of The Star said Friday.
Christians of various denominations form a numerical minority in multi-ethnic Malaysia, whose 28 million population comprises majority Muslim Malays and ethnic Chinese and Indians, who follow different faiths.
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and his government had taken a serious view of the jail attacks and had ordered a probe.
