AGO to 'honor' Soares acquittal, review procedure

AGO to 'honor' Soares acquittal, review procedure

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Following the Supreme Court acquittal of former East Timor
governor Abilio Soares from human rights violations, the prospect
that other suspected abusers would be brought to justice has
dimmed, as the Attorney General's Office (AGO) said on Monday it
would not contest the decision.

AGO spokesman RJ Soehandojo said the office honored the
Supreme Court's decision to clear Soares of all charges in the
East Timor human rights case and would not challenge it, as all
legal recourse had been exhausted.

"Our next step will be to review the whole judicial process to
see whether the law was applied properly. However, the review
will only serve an internal purpose," he told The Jakarta Post.

Soehandojo said justices and prosecutors may have interpreted
the Human Rights Law differently.

"The review will tell us more about how to present a strong
case against human rights violators in the future," he said.

The AGO has been criticized for creating a very weak case for
the prosecution against Soares and 17 other defendants in
connection with the bloodshed and rampage that occurred before
and after the 1999 East Timor referendum. Aside from Soares, the
only other civilian tried by the ad hoc rights tribunal was
militia leader Eurico Gueterres; the rest were police and
military officers who have all been acquitted.

Soares, the only senior official detained in the rights cases,
was acquitted last week by the Supreme Court on the grounds that
the territory was under military rule at the time of the
atrocities, so a civilian official could not be held responsible.

The former governor was sentenced in 2002 to three years in
jail for failing to control his subordinates during an attack on
a church in Liquisa regency that left 22 civilians dead.

Critics have said the weak prosecution's case left the Supreme
Court no choice but to acquit Soares. The ad hoc rights tribunal
was Indonesia's only hope of avoiding an international tribunal
to try parties suspected of perpetrating the mayhem in which
1,000 East Timorese civilians are believed to have been killed.

Separately, Ifdhal Kasim of the Institute for Policy Research
and Advocacy (Elsam) said Indonesia could still elude the
possibility of an international tribunal by salvaging the
remaining legal process taken against the rights abusers. For
example, Gueterres is appealing his five-year sentence.

"The Supreme Court justices must show resolve and reject the
appeal, because what they decide has wide political implications
in the outside world," said Ifdhal.

Soares and Gueterres have claimed to be scapegoats, as all
police and military suspects -- mostly Indonesian nationals --
walked free.

Ifdhal said although the government could not intervene in the
judicial process, it could send a strong signal about its
commitment to bringing human rights abusers to justice.

"A number of Scandinavian countries have proposed to United
Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan that a Commission of Experts
be established to review the entirety of court proceedings at the
ad hoc rights tribunal," he said.

If the Commission deemed the Indonesian judiciary inadequate
in its execution of the law in the East Timor rights cases, it
could recommend the establishment of an international tribunal.

"With all the pressure against us, we must leave behind
nationalistic sentiment that obscured the trying of rights
abusers in East Timor. The case is not about the military as an
institution, but about individuals who abused their authority,"
Ifdhal said.