E. Timor rights defendant cleared

JAKARTA: For the third consecutive time in recent weeks, the Supreme Court has acquitted a defendant of all charges of involvement in the 1999 mayhem in East Timor.

The panel of five judges stated that prosecutors had failed to provide convincing evidence or valid legal arguments linking Lt. Col. Yayat Sudrajat, former Liquica district military commander, with the bloodshed before and after a UN-administered ballot that resulted in East Timor's independence.

In their verdict, which was issued earlier this month, but only made public on Thursday, the judges said prosecutors could not provide evidence that Yayat had links to the pro-integration militia who attacked and murdered dozens of East Timorese civilians taking refuge in houses and churches in Liquica, Dili and Covalima between April and September 1999.

Earlier, the country's highest court exonerated former East Timor police chief and current Papua police chief Insp. Gen. Timbul Silaen and former Covalima regent Col. Herman Sedyono, overruling the ad hoc rights tribunal's guilty verdict for gross human rights violation. -- JP