East Timorese get death for ambush

JAKARTA (JP): A district court sentenced to death two East Timorese separatist rebels Thursday for their involvement in a May 30 ambush which killed 17 security personnel in Baucau regency, East Timor.

Antara reported that Luis Maria da Silva, 57, and Fransisco da Costa, 36, were found guilty by the Baucau district court of violating Article 55 of the Criminal Code relating to armed assault against government authorities.

Presiding Judge Hanceh Tothmaran said both defendants had committed subversion with their grenade attack on the truck carrying security personnel in Nuamana village.

The security personnel were returning from guarding polling stations in Quelicai subdistrict, southeast of Baucau, following national elections.

Seventeen policemen were killed during the ambush, while 10 others were injured.

The ambush was one of a series of bloody attacks on police and civilians by separatist rebels throughout East Timor around the time of the country's May 29 general elections.

The judge said that during the trial the defendants had shown no remorse and that one of them, Luis Maria da Silva, had once been imprisoned for seven years for killing two policemen in Baucau in 1985.

"In this case, we (the panel of judges) have seen no single factor that allows us to hand down a more lenient sentence," Hanceh said in his ruling.

"On the contrary, their crime had stirred unrest among the Indonesian people, especially the East Timorese," he was quoted as saying by Antara.

Both defendants were also found guilty of illegal possession of firearms.

The defendants have decided to appeal. One of their lawyers from the Dili Legal Aid Institute, Nursalim Palilin, argued that the death sentence was not in accordance with the state philosophy of Pancasila.

The death penalty in Indonesia is carried out by firing squad.

Rights

It was also reported Thursday that the Dili diocese-affiliated Commission of Justice and Peace, and the Foundation of Law, Human Rights and Justice in Dili had stated that they had received as many as 451 public complaints since January this year.

The foundation's chairman, Aniceto Guterres Lopes, and the commission's chairman, Amandio de Araujo, revealed that 339 of the cases were linked to violence and violations of human rights.

The complaints received by the foundation, 80 percent of which were deemed to be true, were handled by its members, while those received by the commission were passed on to related government authorities. (aan/33)