E. Timor court begins long-awaited trial
E. Timor court begins long-awaited trial
DILI (Reuters): East Timor began its first long-awaited trial
for crimes against humanity in Dili this week, a landmark move
toward achieving justice for violence linked with the territory's
vote for independence nearly two years ago.
The United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor said
in a statement that a legal defense team attached to its serious
crimes panel on Tuesday delivered its response to charges against
11 defendants.
The charges, made on Monday in the Dili Court of Appeal, were
for crimes including 13 murders, the attacking and burning of
various villages, and the deporting of their inhabitants.
"Each of the charges was (for) an offense committed as part of
a widespread or systematic attack upon the civilian population of
East Timor," prosecutor for the UN special panel for serious
crimes, Stuart Alford, said on Monday.
Some of the most serious charges relate to the murder of a
church group at Los Palos, on the eastern tip of the territory,
on Sept. 25, three days after the arrival of the Australian-led
International Force in East Timor (InterFet).
Some of the crimes carry a 20-year jail sentence.
Pro-Jakarta militia, backed by elements of the Indonesian
military, had ransacked the territory in response to an
overwhelming vote to cede from Indonesia after 23 years of often
brutal rule.
Violence was also widespread leading up to the UN-brokered
Aug. 30 vote in 1999.
East Timor has been under UN administration ever since and is
widely expected to gain full independence in the first few months
of 2002.
The trial began with the appearance of 10 defendants,
including former militia leader Joni Marques who pleaded guilty
to one charge of torture and two charges of crimes against
humanity.
The court was still considering his plea. He faces a total of
seven charges.
Marques is the first of the 10 defendants to respond to the
charges. The UN statement did not provide any information about
the rest of the 10 defendants.
It said the eleventh suspect, Syaful Anwar, who was second-in-
command of Indonesia's Kopassus special forces in the district
where the crimes were committed, was still at large.
Sixty people suspected of commiting serious crimes --
described by the UN as murder, multiple murder, torture, rape
arson or deportation -- are currently in custody.
The UN estimates more than 1,000 people were killed in the
aftermath of the vote and as many as 300,000 people herded across
the border into Indonesian West Timor.
East Timor's courts have held preliminary hearings against
some of those who committed crimes after the landmark vote, but
formal trials have been delayed since January.
Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid had promised to set up
a tribunal dealing with the abuses committed in East Timor but
had made no move to launch the court as political turmoil
deepened in Jakarta where Wahid is fighting off attempts by his
political enemies to oust him.