Australian soldier charged for kicking Timor militiaman's body
Australian soldier charged for kicking Timor militiaman's body
Agencies, Sydney/Canberra
A member of Australia's elite Special Air Service (SAS) regiment has been charged with misconduct for allegedly kicking the body of an East Timorese militiaman, army chief Peter Leahy said on Friday.
The charge follows a lengthy investigation by the Australian Defense Force into brutality allegations against SAS soldiers during a peacekeeping mission to East Timor in 1999.
Leahy said the investigation was nearing completion and it would be inappropriate to reveals its results prematurely.
"I can confirm that one serviceman has been charged with misconduct with regard to corpses, in that he kicked a body. Because of the nature of his service he cannot be named at this time," Leahy said in a statement.
The investigations centered on a gun battle on Oct. 6, 1999, near Suai on East Timor's border with West Timor, in which two militiamen were killed, nine wounded and more than 100 captured. Two SAS troops were also wounded in the firefight.
Rumors of subsequent misconduct have circulated in defense circles for some time, including claims a senior SAS soldier, angry about his soldiers' injuries, shot dead one or more of the captives.
The military revealed two years ago it was investigating about 18 incidents of the alleged misconduct by the elite SAS troops.
The United Nations exhumed militia corpses as part of the investigation into the cause of one man's death on Oct. 6, 1999, and into claims some of the prisoners were treated brutally and tortured during interrogation.
The incident threatens to sully the highly praised role Australia played in leading a United Nations force in East Timor after a vote for independence from Indonesia sparked violence and up to 1,000 killings by pro-Jakarta militias.
A defense spokeswoman refused to say if any evidence of battlefield executions had been found, although it appears unlikely given that investigators exhumed the bodies of the two dead militia from a cemetery in Dili late last year and no charges have yet been laid.
The militiamen belonged to the pro-Jakarta Laksaur group responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the violence that followed an overwhelming vote for independence by the East Timorese in August, 1999.
Most of the militia escaped to West Timor, never to be brought to justice for the hundreds of murders and for the torture, arson and destruction for which they were blamed.
Leahy said the allegations should not undermine the work of Australian troops in East Timor, who spearheaded the UN-backed Interfet force sent in September, 1999, to quell the violence and drive the militia out of the newly-independent nation.
"They have done and continue to do a marvelous job of representing their country in bringing peace and security to East Timor," he said.
East Timor celebrated its full independence as the world's newest nation in May 2002 but a scaled-down UN peacekeeping mission is still active there as the country grooms new leaders to assume its responsibilities.