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The Attorney General’s Office said on Wednesday that it will challenge the acquittal of Sheikh Puji, a self-proclaimed Islamic cleric who married a 12-year-old girl.

A Central Java court threw out the child abuse charges against Sheikh Puji in a preliminary ruling in the case on Tuesday.

The Ungaran District Court said the prosecution failed to detail how and when the defendant had committed the acts for which he had been accused.

“The ruling was issued in a preliminary hearing. It’s not a verdict so we can ask the court to still try the case,” AGO spokesman Didiek Darmadi said. “Within the next seven days, we will ask the Central Java High Court to overturn the ruling and order a trial in the District Court.”

Didiek was tight-lipped about the prosecutors’ strategy.

“We have delegated the case to local prosecutors. The AGO will ask the Central Java chief prosecutor to lodge a countersuit against the ruling. It’s not over yet,” he said.

Puji, a wealthy handicraft exporter, sparked public outrage after he took a 12-year-old girl as his second wife last August.

Critics accused the cleric of practicing legalized pedophilia, but he said the marriage was valid under Islamic law.

The 43-year-old man, whose real name is Pujiantocahyo Widianto, was charged under the Child Protection Law for allegedly, “persuading a child to have sex and/or taking advantage of a person’s economic condition for his or her own benefit” and under the 1974 Marriage Law for marrying a minor.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, secretary-general of the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas Anak), said the commission would send witnesses to testify in the case if the High Court ordered a retrial.

“Prosecutors must challenge the ruling because, in our opinion, they did not make an error with the indictment. It is the judges who have misinterpreted the law,” he said.

“We cannot let the preliminary ruling go unchallenged because it could potentially set a bad precedent allowing underage marriage.”