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.