A suspected Islamic militant told judges Wednesday he took part in the beheadings of three Christian girls on an Indonesian island wracked by sectarian violence because he wanted to avenge the deaths of Muslims.
Hasanuddin told the Central Jakarta District Court he and two other men were "involved" in the October 2005 attack on the girls as they walked to school on Sulawesi island, the scene of interfaith battles that left at least 1,000 people dead from 1998 to 2002.
"I was indeed involved in the beheadings," Hasanuddin, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, told the court. "But we did it because authorities did nothing against massacres of Muslims."
