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.