Three Christian militants were executed by firing squad today for leading attacks on Muslims six years ago that left at least 70 people dead, setting off fresh sectarian clashes on restive Sulawesi island, police said.

Mobs torched cars and police posts in several villages before security forces restored order, said Maj. Rudy Sufahriyadi, police chief in the town of Poso. Elsewhere they torched a prison, freeing scores of inmates, blockaded roads, and looted Muslim-owned shops and restaurants.

On the island of Flores, the executed men’s birthplace, machete-wielding mobs ran through the streets, sending women and children running in panic.

“We understand that some people are disappointed and sad to hear their brothers were executed,” Sufahriyadi said. “It’s normal, but we will not tolerate any anarchist acts that may worsen the situation.”

The men were taken before the firing squad at 12:15 a.m. (2:15 p.m. EDT Thursday), said a senior police officer who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Family members later said they had received confirmation of their deaths.

The European Union had criticized the planned executions; capital punishment is banned in the 25-member bloc.

“The presidency of the European Union has learned with disappointment that despite numerous expressions of concern by the EU to the Indonesian authorities, Indonesia has carried out executions in Central Sulawesi,” said a statement issued Friday by Finland, which currently holds the EU presidency.

Fabianus Tibo, 60, Marinus Riwu, 48, and Dominggus da Silva, 42, were found guilty of leading a Christian militia that launched a series of attacks in May 2000.

The bodies of Tibo and Riwu were flown back to their village of Beteleme, in Central Sulawesi’s Morowalai district, for burial, said Central Sulawesi police spokesman Lt. Col. Muhamad Kilat. The body of Da Silva, who came from faraway Flores island, was buried overnight in the provincial capital of central Sulawesi province, Palu.

In carrying out the death sentence, Indonesia ignored an appeal last month by Pope Benedict XVI to spare the men. A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told the Italian news agency ANSA that news of the execution “was very sad and painful.”

The case against the three had heightened tensions in the world’s most populous Muslim nation and raised questions about the role religion played in punishing those allegedly behind the violence that swept Sulawesi province from 1998 to 2002, killing more than 1,000 people of both religions. Only a handful of Muslims were convicted in the violence, all for 15 years in prison or less.

The men told relatives and a priest during final prayers at their jail Thursday that they were innocent but ready to die.

Fearing violence timed to the executions, Indonesia deployed more than 2,000 police and soldiers in Palu, some guarding churches that dot the city.

Palu, where the executions took place, was largely calm, with thousands of police standing on street corners and guarding markets and churches, watching as some 1,000 mourners filed into St. Maria’s church early Friday to take part in a requiem.

“My father begged us not to be angry, not to seek revenge,” Tibo’s son, Robert, told Christian followers after the morning prayers. “He asked us to forgive those who did this to him. God blesses all of us, he said.”

But violence flared in the Sulawesi villages of Tentena and Lage, where hundreds of people went on a rampage after learning of the deaths. And thousands rallied in East Nusatenggara province, home to many Roman Catholics in the country’s far east, blockading roads and burning buildings.

The executions came amid an outcry in many Muslim nations about comments made by the pope on Islam. The pontiff last week cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman.” He has since said he was “deeply sorry” about the reactions to his remarks and that they did not reflect his own opinions.

The condemned men had said they hoped investigations into the clashes would continue, noting that they had provided authorities with the names of 16 Christians who allegedly instigated some of the worst bloodshed.

The government says its probe is complete.

“It’s useless for me to say anything now,” said Tibo’s son early Friday. “The government never listened to him when he was alive. They ignored everything.”

Human rights workers say the men’s 2001 trial was a sham, and that while it was possible the men took part in some of the violence, they almost certainly were not the masterminds.

Others said crowds of Muslim hardliners gathered at the court during the hearings, likely intimidating judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and witnesses.

“The men’s lawyers received death threats, including a bomb planted at one lawyer’s house and demonstrators armed with stones outside the courthouse demanded that the three be sentenced to death,” said Isabelle Cartron of London-based Amnesty International.

Indonesia is a secular nation with the world’s largest number of Muslims, about 190 million. In Sulawesi and several other eastern regions, Christian and Muslim populations are roughly equal.