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.