A Christian family has pitched itself against state Islamic authorities in an effort to lay claim to the body of a dead relative who followed both religions.

Lawyers for the family of Rayappan Anthony, 71, today said that his widow Lourdes Mary Maria Soosay, 69, and five children were prepared to battle to the nation's highest courts to bury him as a Roman Catholic.

"They insist they want the body back," said lawyer A Sivanesan.

"They say they are willing to go as far as the federal court if they have to," he told AFP .

Anthony's case echoes that of M Moorthy, a Hindu mountaineering hero buried last year as Muslim by Islamic authorities over the protests of his wife, who said he had never converted to Islam.

The case exposed growing racial and religious divides in majority-Muslim Malaysia, and served to heighten communal tensions.

Anthony, who died last Wednesday after a long illness, was born a Roman Catholic, but converted to Islam in 1990 when he took a Muslim woman as his second wife.

Under Malaysian law, non-Muslims must first convert to Islam before they can marry Muslims.

In 1996, Anthony renounced Islam and went back to Lourdes Mary and his children, his family and lawyers said.

Police report

However, Islamic authorities in western Selangor state last week tried to claim his body from a Kuala Lumpur hospital morgue to bury him as a Muslim, triggering a confrontation with the family.

Lourdes Mary yesterday filed a suit with the Kuala Lumpur High Court against the government and the hospital, seeking a declaration that Anthony was a Christian and that his body should be released to the family.

One of Anthony's four daughters today also lodged a police complaint of harassment after three of them were issued with subpoenas by Islamic authorities, who are insisting they appear in a syariah court over the dispute.

In Malaysia, matters of personal law for Muslims are heard in syariah courts, where non-Muslims have little say.

"They feel harassed because they have lost their father and their husband," said the family's lead counsel, M Manoharan.

"They are in a state of mourning and depression that is compounded by the situation," he said.