Thousands protested over the execution of three Christians in Indonesia today, torching an official’s house, looting shops and setting prisoners free in the hometown of one of the executed men.

The three militants were executed by a police firing squad before dawn today in religiously-divided Central Sulawesi province, despite appeals for mercy from Pope Benedict XVI and human rights groups.

Fabianus Tibo, Marianus Riwu and Dominggus Silva were sentenced to death in 2001, after being found guilty of leading a mob in an attack that killed more than 200 people at an Islamic boarding school during Muslim-Christian clashes in the province.

The three men had originally been scheduled to die in August, but the executions were postponed after the Pope’s appeal and demonstrations by thousands of Indonesians.

Security was tight in Palu, capital of Central Sulawesi province, where violence between the Christian and Muslim populations has left thousands dead in recent years.

The prisoners' Catholic priest, Jimmy Tumbelaka, told the Reuters news agency: "According to valid information I received they were shot in a sitting position with their hands tied. Two were blindfolded while Marianus Riwu refused to be blindfolded."

The bodies of Tibo and Riwu were flown to their hometown, while Silva, from Atambua in West Timor, was buried in Palu, 1,650 km (1,030 miles) northeast of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.

Silva’s death triggered protests by thousands of Christians in Atambua. A local Red Cross official, Elli Mali, said that the demonstrators broke into a jail and freed about 200 prisoners. "The mob numbers in thousands. I ran into some of the prisoners and they said, ’I’m free!’", said the official.

The protesters threw rocks and burned the local prosecutor's house. Julito Borges, a policeman in Atambua, said that two policemen were injured but the crowd had begun to disperse.

In Palu, where the executions took place, Christians appeared to have responded to Bishop Joseph Suwatan's call for the faithful to remain calm. Mourners attended church services to pray for the men.

But in the Poso area of Central Sulawesi, where many Christian-Muslim clashes have occurred in recent years, including the incident for which the men were prosecuted, the police said that hundreds of protesters rallied against the executions and burned tyres on the street.

The protesters threw rocks at anti-riot policemen, injuring an officer, but had begun to disperse by early afternoon.

Jusuf Kalla, the Indonesian Vice President, told reporters: "We are concerned that the public misunderstood. The ... case is not a religious or ethnic issue but simply a legal one."

Human rights groups and other death penalty opponents had urged Indonesia not to proceed with the executions. Some are concerned that while the Christians were executed, none of the Muslims involved in religious clashes had been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison.

The European Union presidency issued a statement saying it had "learned with disappointment that despite numerous expressions of concern by the EU to the Indonesian authorities," Indonesia had carried out the executions. It noted the EU considers the death penalty to be a "cruel and inhuman punishment".

Muslim-Christian clashes rocked Central Sulawesi from late 1998 to 2001, killing an estimated 2,000 people, before a peace accord took effect. There has been sporadic violence since. Around 85 per cent of Indonesia’s 220 million people follow Islam, but some areas in eastern Indonesia have roughly equal proportions of Muslims and Christians.

Three Islamic radicals face the same penalty in the weeks ahead over bombings in 2002 on the tourist island of Bali, and six Australians are on death row for drug smuggling on that island.

Indonesia’s government keeps statistics on executions secret. Before today's executions, the Indonesian Human Rights Monitor had said the number of people executed in the past decade may be around 10.

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