Two local leaders of the Al-Qidayah sect went on trial Thursday at the Padang District Court on charges of defaming Islam.

Dedi Priadi, 44, an Al-Qidayah leader in the city, and the acting chairman of the sect's West Sumatra branch, Gerry Lufhti Yudistira, 20, sat together as the prosecutor read the indictment against them.

Dozens of people attended the court session.

Prosecutor Nasril Naib said in the indictment that the defendants intentionally defamed Islam by spreading Al-Qiyadah al Islamiyah teachings preached by Ahmad Musadeq.

Nasril said the teachings deviated from those of Islam, including by requiring followers to pray just once a day instead of five and preaching a different profession of faith.

"It also preaches that in the fifth phase of its so-called movement, should the number of (sect) followers in Indonesia reach a ratio of 1:10 with other faiths, a war will take place to multiply the number of followers," said Nasril.

He said Dedi and Gerry spread the false teachings in West Sumatra by carrying out secret rituals, and were able to recruit a large number of youths and students with scant religious knowledge.

The West Sumatra chapter of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued an edict on Sept. 24 last year saying the teachings of Al-Qidayah were deviant and misleading.

After the defendants continued their activities, said Nasril, the West Sumatra Supervision of Religious Movements in Society, on Oct. 5, 2007, issued a decree banning the movement.

The attorney general on Nov. 9 issued a nationwide ban on the movement.

"The movement was banned but the accused did not heed the ban and continued carrying out their rituals," said Nasril.

Defense lawyer Vino Oktavia from the Padang office of the Legal Aid Institute objected to the charges and asked that both defendants be released immediately.

Vino said the charges were delivered before the ban on the movement came into effect.

He said the group should have been issued a warning by the Religious Affairs Ministry, Attorney General's Office and Home Ministry, and that if it failed to heed this warning, only then should it have been disbanded or banned.

"If they still disobeyed it, only then should the followers have been arrested," he said.

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