Jakarta – Police fired warning shots at stone throwing protesters outside a trial of three Christians accused of provoking bloody sectarian riots in central Indonesian, news reports said Thursday.

Two officers on duty at the district courthouse in Palu, central Sulawesi island, were injured in the incident, state news agency Antara said. Police dispersed the crowd which demanded the trio's ringleader, Fabiunus Tibo, be sentenced to death.

Earlier state prosecutors told the court how Tibo had led an attack on a Muslim boarding school last year.

At least 400 hundred people died on the island in fighting between Muslim and Christian gangs in May. Several villages were also destroyed. Palu is about 1,600 kilometers northeast of Jakarta.

Most of Indonesia's sectarian bloodshed has been in the eastern Moluccan islands where approximately 5,000 people of both faiths have been killed during the past two years.