Three subdistrict heads were caught on camera watching a pornographic video on a smartphone while they were supposed to be listening to a speech by the district head of Malang, East Java.

Although the incident took place on Monday, it was only discovered on Friday after a journalist saw evidence of it in one of his photos, news portal Kompas.com reported.

The event happened during a plenary session of Malang's Legislative Council to discuss four edict drafts. Malang's district head, Rendra Kresna, was delivering a speech about the drafts when a subdistrict head sitting in the back row of seat took out his Blackberry and started to watch a pornographic video on it.

The video quickly caught the attention of two colleagues sitting next to him. Another subdistrict head tried to tell them to stop watching the video and start paying attention to the speech. He was ignored.

When the video was finished, the subdistrict head put the Blackberry back into his pocket and went to the men's room. He never returned. Rendra Kresna said he would impose administrative sanctions on the three officials, whose identities were not revealed.

"They should have paid attention to the discussion because it was important. I won't deny that some officials probably have similar movie collections on their cellphones, but if they play those movies in the middle of a plenary session, it's so wrong," Rendra said.

According to him, the drafts they were discussing are part of Malang's middle-term development plans. "Officials attending the meeting must be knowledgeable about the plans," he said.