East Timor's militia leader refuses UNTAET questioning
East Timor's militia leader refuses UNTAET questioning
JAKARTA (JP): East Timor prointegration militia leader Eurico
Guterres refused on Tuesday to be questioned by prosecutors of
the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
(UNTAET).
He told journalists at the Attorney General's Office that he
was invited to come to the office to meet UNTAET's attorney
general.
"But they then gave me a list of 200 questions and said that I
was to be questioned. They deceived me," he said.
UNTAET has named him a suspect in human rights abuses related
to the UN-sponsored East Timorese ballot in 1999, he said.
"What had happened in East Timor at that time was a collective
sin, so not only I should be held responsible for that," he said.
Facilitated by the Attorney General's Office, UNTAET's
Attorney General Mohamed Othman and his investigators led by
Oyvind Olsen had arranged a meeting with Eurico.
Earlier in the day, Eurico told the North Jakarta District
Court that he had ordered his men to return seized weapons to the
military instead of the police, since the latter had humiliated
him in front of his men.
"They prevented me from meeting Vice President Megawati
Soekarnoputri (during the weapon hand-over ceremony in Belu
police precinct). I wanted to hand over my pistols to her myself
and to ask her not to neglect my men's future. They kept me in a
room and talked nonsense until the ceremony was over.
"When I finally walked out of the room of the Belu police
detective chief, my men had already grabbed back the weapons they
had surrendered the other day and ran into the street.
"I told them: 'It's useless to surrender our weapons to the
police. Collect all the weapons you have taken and hand them to
the military commander'," he told the court.
Eurico is charged with instigating a crime during an attack
after a weapon hand-over ceremony led by Megawati on Sept. 24
last year.
The court is adjourned until March 22 to hear the sentence
request of the prosecutors.
Chief prosecutor Hamka Minhadj said that Eurico, if found
guilty, could face a maximum sentence of six years in prison.
(bby)