Wife loses Malaysian mountaineer Muslim conversion case

A Malaysian Hindu woman on Friday lost the latest round of a battle to prove that her husband, a noted mountaineer, was a Hindu and not a Muslim convert as authorities claim.

M. Moorthy, who was a member of a 1997 Malaysian Mount Everest expedition, died in 2005 and was buried as a Muslim on the insistence of religious authorities and against the wishes of his wife S. Kaliammal, 35.

Lawyer M. Manoharan said the Court of Appeal maintained that the Islamic Sharia court had jurisdiction to determine Moorthy's religious status and that the civil court could not interfere.

The decision was designed to "shut us up", he said. "It is not fair. The wife is very upset. We will take it to the highest court in the land -- the Federal Court," he told AFP. "The battle is not over yet."

"The Sharia court should not stray into areas outside their religion when there is a question of competing religion," he said.

Moorthy's wife said she had no idea of any conversation and cast doubt on his ability to make such a decision given that he had been ill for many years before his death.

Days after Moorthy's demise at the age of 36, the High Court ruled it would not disturb the declaration that he was a Muslim as it was a matter for the religious courts.

Malaysia has a dual-track legal system, with the civil courts and the Sharia courts operating side by side. Non-Muslims say they do not get a fair hearing when cases involving them end up in religious courts.

Conversion rows, including "body-snatching" cases when Islamic authorities have battled with relatives over the remains of people whose religion is disputed, are common in Muslim-majority Malaysia.

The tussles have raised allegations that the country is being "Islamised" and that the rights of the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities are being eroded.