Rights abusers should be executed: East Timor leader<\/p>\n
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Independent Indonesian legal experts lamented on Thursday the
\nad hoc human rights court's verdict against former pro-Jakarta
\nmilitia leader Eurico Guterres, saying the sentence was too
\nlenient for such a crime against humanity charged against him.<\/p>\n
Ifdhal Kasim of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy
\n(ELSAM) said on Thursday that the panel of judges should have
\nconsidered such an extraordinary crime the common enemy of people
\nacross the world.<\/p>\n
\"Giving Eurico a minimum sentence and allowing him to roam
\nfree, totally neglects the gravity of the crime,\" Ifdhal said.<\/p>\n
In a statement released earlier in the day, ELSAM said the
\njudges had again failed to set a good precedence for human rights
\ntrials in the future.<\/p>\n
The whole process of the landmark trials for atrocities
\ncommitted in East Timor had so far shown that they were unable to
\nprotect or uphold human rights violations in the country, it
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
ELSAM also regretted the fact that only civilians (of East
\nTimorese origin) had so far been convicted in the trial. Eurico
\nwas the second defendant after former East Timor governor Abilio
\nSoares was handed three years, while all the military and police
\nofficers tried so far were acquitted of all charges.<\/p>\n
\"The judges restricted themselves to the weak charges built by
\nprosecutors who perceived the East Timor mayhem as a mere
\ncommunal conflict. The court has allowed anyone connected to a
\nstate institution to be exonerated and cleared of any
\ninvolvement,\" it said.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the court sentenced Eurico to 10 years in jail
\nfor his role in a massacre at the home of East Timor pro-
\nindependence leader Manuel Carrascalao in Dili three years ago.<\/p>\n
Previously, the same court sentenced Abilio to three years in
\njail due to his failure to stop massive killing, as well as arson
\nattacks across the region following a vote for independence in
\n1999.<\/p>\n
In a statement to the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, about the
\ncourt decision, Carrascalao, whose teenage son was killed in the
\nattack, said that human rights criminals should be given a death
\nsentence.<\/p>\n
\"I strongly lament that criminals like these have not been
\nexecuted. They killed innocents who have not done anything
\nwrong,\" he said. \"Those unfortunate people, like my 16-year-old
\nson and the 17 other refugees, had not done anything wrong to
\nanyone.\"<\/p>\n
Separately, Topo Susanto of the University of Indonesia said
\nthat the implementation of the Law No. 26\/1999 on Human Rights
\nTribunal had so far reflected the brotherhood among security
\npersonnel and the courts, instead of efforts to uphold human
\nrights.<\/p>\n
\"Looking back to the past, the law was born under
\ninternational pressure and the demand for reform. All of these,
\nof course, made political motives dominate the whole process at
\nthe House of Representatives, but failed to provide grounds that
\nthe gross human rights violations in East Timor had a strong
\nrelation with the government policy at that time,\" Topo said.<\/p>\n
He further said that any effort to review the law would be
\nfruitless, because lawmakers and members of the judiciary in the
\ncountry could not care less about the people's aspirations.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/rights-abusers-should-be-executed-east-timor-leader-1447893297",
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