E. Timorese may get 12-year prison term for killing peacekeeper
E. Timorese may get 12-year prison term for killing peacekeeper
Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post,
Jakarta
State prosecutors demanded on Thursday a 12-year jail term for
an East Timorese pro-integration militiaman for the alleged
killing of a New Zealand peacekeeper two years ago.
Chief prosecutor Muhammad Syafei told the Central Jakarta
District Court that defendant Yacobus Bere, 37, killed Pvt.
Leonard William Manning, 24, while the victim was serving with
the international peacekeeping force in East Timor on July 24,
2000.
The prosecutors said the defendant was guilty of manslaughter,
which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail.
They were unable to charge Bere with murder, which carries a
maximum penalty of death or life imprisonment, because testimony
from witnesses, including several of Manning's colleagues, failed
to support it.
Clad in a red-and-white military-type uniform, Bere looked
calm during the hearing, which was presided over by Judge I
Nengah Suriada.
"I wouldn't accept the sentence demand, even if prosecutors
asked for only one year's imprisonment. I didn't carry it out
(the killing) for the sake of myself or my family, but for the
red-and-white," he told reporters after the hearing, referring to
the colors of the national flag.
The court will resume on Feb. 25 to hear the defendant's plea.
Manning was a member of a UN force dispatched to East Timor to
restore order after the independence vote in September 1999.
Bere and five other militiamen, who were herding cattle, shot
Manning while the force tracked militiamen in a border area near
Suai, East Timor, according to the indictment.
After shooting the victim, the defendant took a sword that was
being brandished by one of his accomplices and approached the
victim to ensure that he was dead.
The autopsy report revealed Manning was shot twice, his ears
severed and his throat slashed.
Bere surrendered to Kupang Police on Jan. 15 after a six-month
police manhunt. He was then flown to Jakarta for the trial.
Three other militiamen are still being tried at the Central
Jakarta District Court in the same case.
Six militiamen were convicted last year for the murder of
three UN aid workers in West Timor. They were sentenced to 10
months to 20 months in jail at the same court.
The high court, however, increased their sentence to five
years to seven years imprisonment after the international
community and the UN expressed their disappointment over the
light sentence.
Top officials of the United Nations Transitional
Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) voiced dissatisfaction with
Indonesia on Thursday for its slow progress in establishing an ad
hoc tribunal to address the human rights violations committed in
East Timor in 1999.
The delegation visited the country to ensure that the
prosecution of the suspects here can proceed at the same pace of
trials involving similar cases now underway in East Timor, said
the acting representative of the UNTAET secretary-general, Dennis
McNamara.
"We have issued 33 indictments in the first trial, and the
second trial has just started," he said.
"We need to see cooperation, because progress here is too
slow," he told reporters after meeting with National Commission
on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) chairman Djoko Sugianto.
McNamara said that it was important for Indonesia to convince
the international community of the sincerity of its efforts to
conduct the tribunal; he added that the UN Human Rights
Commission would bring up the Indonesian case during its next
meeting in Geneva on March.
The delegation planned to meet the Minister of Justice and
Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra and Attorney General M.A.
Rahman on Friday to discuss further cooperation based on a
Memorandum of Understanding signed in April 2000 to allow an
exchange of witnesses during trials.