Jakarta – Hundreds of mourners in the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu prayed Saturday for three Catholic men executed the day earlier for leading a Christian militia that killed Muslims.

Some 500 mourners prayed at the Santa Maria Catholic church during a morning mass in Palu, Agence France-Presse reported.

The execution of the three by firing squad, despite appeals for clemency and criticism from human rights groups, triggered a violent reaction Friday, with large mobs vandalising government buildings and police posts in Maumere, Flores, and storming a local jail, in Atambua, West Timor.

In the town of Maumere on the mainly-Christian island, the situation was calmer on Saturday afternoon although most shops and businesses were still closed. Sikka Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Endang Syafrudin said police had not anticipated Friday's violent reaction to the executions.

A large, angry mob of about 1,000 people had burned down the Maumere District Court and ransacked the local prosecutors' office and legislative council buildings, he said. "The mobs suddenly rushed there and ended up burning the buildings. This is far beyond what we expected," Endang told The Jakarta Post.

A requiem mass was held Saturday for two of the executed men, Fabianus Tibo and Marianus Riwu, in Beteleme, Central Sulawesi, where their bodies were lying in state at a small Catholic church.

The two, together with Dominggus da Silva, were executed early Friday for masterminding some of the deadly unrest that rocked the province in 2000 and 2001, including a machete and gun assault on an Islamic school that left at least 70 people dead. Muslim groups put the death toll at 191.

The attack on the school was one of the most brutal incidents during the sectarian violence that swept central Sulawesi province from 1998 to 2002, killing at least 1,000 people from both faiths.

Roy Rening, a lawyer for the men, told the Associated Press that the Beteleme mass was presided over by family priest Jimmy Tumbelaka from Palu. Tumbelaka said the bodies of Tibo and Riwu would be buried at two separate cemeteries in Beteleme on Sunday.

A representative for the families of the three men, M. Adu, told detik.com the families had evidence the government had been in violation of human rights when it executed the men.

The authorities had not allowed the men to be given their last rites by the Catholic Church, he said. A request for a funeral procession for Dominggus and Marinus in Flores was also turned down. Police had worried that a funeral procession would spark rioting in the area. "This was not an execution but a slaughter. Our culture requires that our brothers be buried in accordance to our custom and religion," Adu said.

Rening said he was making arrangements to bring Dominggus' body back to his hometown of Maumere. Police and prosecutors had initially denied the convict's request. The body was set to leave Palu on a plane at 7:15 a.m. Sunday, he said.

Saturday also saw the East Nusa Tenggara regency of Sikka send two people representing the administration and Dominggus' family to take his body home for burial. Sikka Regent Aleks Longginus said the representatives were scheduled to fly to Palu on Saturday afternoon to lobby Palu Catholic church leaders and other institutions to let him be buried there.

"The representatives are being sent mainly to respond to Dominggus' request before the execution that he be buried in Maumere," Longginus said.

The East Indonesia People's Solidarity group said Saturday in Jakarta that it would report the executions of the three to the International Court of Justice.

Meanwhile, the East Nusa Tenggara Police said they were hunting rioters involved in Friday's destruction of government buildings in Atambua and Maumere.

Officers of a special detachment have been deployed to Atambua and Maumere to search for the perpetrators, police said. "One of our duties is to capture the rioters," East Nusa Tenggara Police spokesman Comr. Marthen Radja said in Kupang on Saturday.

The officers would help local police locate those behind the riot and hunt down the escaped prisoners in Atambua, Marthen said.

[Yemris Fointuna contributed to this story from Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara.]