Banda Aceh – A lawyer of two foreign women on trial for visa violations in Indonesia's restive Aceh province said on Wednesday their clients have to face long trials and the prosecution was moving too slowly.

In a message to a correspondent sent after the judge announced the women's trial would be adjourned until December 19, Briton Lesley McCulloch said she was very stressed and fellow defendant American Joy Lee Sadler was on a hunger strike. But one of their lawyers said he could not confirm if Sadler was on hunger strike.

"[Sadler] said she might take such actions but I don't know whether she has started or not. So, I can't confirm that yet," lawyer Johnson Pandjaitan told Reuters.

The trial of McCulloch, who lectures at the University of Tasmania in Australia, and Sadler, who has nursing experience with refugees in conflict zones, began on Monday and several witnesses testified on Wednesday. Both women have denied wrongdoing and have said they were maltreated when they were arrested and during their detention – accusations authorities have rejected.

The judge said the next session would not be until December 19 because of the holiday surrounding the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Fitr, which falls on December 6.

Pandjaitan said the trial could go faster if the prosecution had been ready to demand sentences for McCulloch and Sadler this week.

"Yes, there is the cultural factor that everything seems to halt in Aceh the three weeks surrounding Eid Al Fitr," but he said among the biggest factors was "the lack of seriousness from the prosecutors". "My clients' rights for a quick trial have been obstructed," he said.

On Wednesday, Sadler told the court she hoped the trials could be fast so she could return to her home in Waterloo, Iowa, for Christmas. Sadler wept at times during the session.

Witnesses told the court the two women entered Aceh as tourists but some said they should not have gone to the southern Aceh village where Indonesian troops picked them up in a security sweep on September 11.

"Pulau Banyak was a tourist destination but Mangamat village was not," tourism official Hamidy testified, referring to the island where the women said they were supposed to go and the hamlet where they were captured.

Police have said the women were carrying materials on the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) suggesting they were associating with the separatist rebels before they were caught last September.

But lawyers said their clients could not reach their destination because they were confronted by armed men who led them to the South Aceh village. "It's clear that they were tourists. And they were victims of the conflict because they went from one armed group to the other armed group ... the soldiers," said Pandjaitan, who declined to identify the first armed group.

Authorities said the women violated their tourist visas. If they are convicted for that offence they would face a maximum five years in jail or a fine of 25 million rupiah ($2,771) for immigration offences.