JAKARTA'S CHRISTIAN GOVERNOR FOUND GUILTY,SENTENCED IN ISLAM BLASPHEMY TRIAL
AHOK CENTER TELLING THE COURT HE WOULD APPEAL THE SENTENCE An Indonesian court has sentenced the minority Christian governor of Jakarta to two years in prison for blaspheming the Koran at a trial that undermined the country's reputation for practicing a moderate form of Islam. In a tense trial that was widely seen as a test of religious tolerance in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known as Ahok, was "found to have legitimately and convincingly conducted a criminal act of blasphemy, and because of that we have imposed two years of imprisonment", head judge Dwiarso Budi Santiarto told the court. Ahok was charged with blasphemy after he said clerics had used a Koranic verse to mislead voters by telling them that Muslims were not allowed to vote for a Christian. He has denied wrongdoing, and said he was not criticising the Koran, but rather the clerics' interpretation of the verse. The sentence was harsher than expe