Convicted UN staff killers get heavier sentences

Convicted UN staff killers get heavier sentences

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Supreme Court has increased the sentences of three men,
convicted of killing three staff members of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in West Timor in September
2000, to between five and seven years, a far heavier verdict than
that previously handed down by the North Jakarta District Court.

East Timor pro-integration militiamen Xisto Pereira, Sarafin
Ximenes, and Joao Martin were initially sentenced to between 10
months and 15 months by the district court last May.

They were among six people convicted of conspiring to foment
the violent rampage in Atambua that resulted in the brutal
killings of the workers, and the damage of property belonging to
UNHCR.

The Supreme Court's verdict, issued on Nov. 15, was in line
with the appeal sought by state prosecutors.

Chief Justice Bagir Manan said on Friday that the panel of
judges multiplied the jail terms because "the defendants' actions
clearly led to the death of the UN staff."

Pereira, 26, and Martin, 27, were given five years'
imprisonment, while Ximenes, 26, was sentenced to seven.

"As the result of misconduct by the defendants, as well as the
ensuing mob, the windows of the UNHCR office were damaged and
three staff members of the UNHCR were killed ..." the justices
said in their ruling.

The Supreme Court, however, has yet to issue its verdict over
the case involving three other militiamen -- Julius Naisama, Jose
Francisco, and Joao Alvez da Cruz -- who have been sentenced to
between 16 months and 20 months for the lesser charge of
fomenting violence in Atambua, a West Timor border town.

The three UN workers -- American (Puerto Rican) Carlos
Casaeres, Ethiopian Samson Aregahegn, and Peril Simundze, a
Croatian national -- were hacked to death and then burned.

The murder sparked an international outcry and an exodus of
international aid workers from West Timor, leaving some 100,000
East Timorese refugees in the hands of Indonesian authorities and
local aid workers.

Speaking to the Supreme Court's verdict, lawyer Frans Hendra
Winarta said he doubted if the heavier sentence would give
international credibility to Indonesia's legal system.

"I heard last month that the local East Timor court trying the
same case sentenced the six militiamen to 30 years each. In the
U.S., such premeditated murder carries a life sentence -- and
even in our country, the crime can carry 10 years of jail term.

"So this heavier verdict does nothing to improve our tarnished
human rights image before the international community," Frans
told The Jakarta Post.

He wondered aloud whether the Supreme Court had a hidden
agenda in disclosing the verdict to the public a full two months
after it was handed down.

Indonesian law does not require the court to reveal verdicts
in appeal cases to the public.