DHAKA: An Indonesian court on Wednesday jailed 14 Muslim Rohingya men from Myanmar for nine months each for bludgeoning eight Buddhists from their country to death in an Indonesian detention centre.

The Rohingya asylum-seekers in April killed the Buddhist men, who had been detained for illegally fishing in Indonesian waters, as sectarian tensions in their home country flared.

The Rohingyas, aged 18 to 37, accused the fishermen of sexually harassing two Rohingya women and said the Buddhists started the violence in the detention centre, in the port town of Belawan near Medan city on Sumatra island.

‘The defendants have been proven legally and convincingly guilty of working together to blatantly carry out violence, which resulted in the loss of human lives,’ chief judge Aksir told the Medan district court, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 2003 HRS, DEC 04, 2013