East Timor jails former militiamen

East Timor jails former militiamen

EAST TIMOR: Eight former pro-Jakarta militiamen have been jailed
in East Timor for murders committed in mayhem surrounding a 1999
UN-backed vote that led to the country's separation from
Indonesia, officials said on Monday.

A special court issued last Monday verdicts in two cases
involving the eight, bringing to 63 the number of people
convicted in East Timor over the violence, according to a
statement by the country's serious crime unit.

Among those jailed was Mateus Lao, who was imprisoned for
eight years for murdering a man who tried to flee into
Indonesian-controlled West Timor. Seven others received sentences
of between four and five years for an incident in which three
people were murdered in the East Timorese village of Netensuan.

Indonesian troops and their local militia proxies waged a
savage campaign of intimidation and revenge in the months around
the August 1999 poll, which saw East Timorese vote overwhelmingly
to split from Indonesia. An estimated 1,000 people were killed
and whole towns razed.

United Nations-funded prosecutors have indicted 369 people,
including former Indonesian armed forces chief General Wiranto,
but 281 of them are in Indonesia, which refuses to hand anyone
over for trial. -- AFP