Eurico seeks police protection

JAKARTA (JP): Insecure with Attorney General Marzuki Darusman's statement that he be sent back to East Timor for prosecution, pro-Indonesia militia leader Eurico Guterres revealed on Thursday that he had sought police protection.

"When I was arrested, Marzuki told me that I was going to be sent back to East Timor," Eurico told reporters from his safe house, located in a complex which also houses top Jakarta Police officers.

The complex is situated inside the Jakarta Police Headquarters.

Eurico was transferred from the detention center at the National Police Headquarters to the safe house on Saturday after he was arrested on Oct. 4 for his alleged role in ordering his followers to repossess arms after initially handing them over to the authorities on Sept. 24.

Eurico was also named a suspect by the Attorney General's Office in the alleged human rights abuses in East Timor last year.

The South Jakarta District Court ordered the police on Monday to release Eurico, saying that he had been wrongfully arrested.

Eurico said that he considered Marzuki's plan to send him back to East Timor as a threat since Australia and the United States had ordered his arrest and murder in East Timor.

"Why do they (the U.S. and Australia) have this thing against me. Such a stance will not solve the problems in East Timor," he said.

Marzuki Darusman has rejected a request filed by the United Nations Transitional Administration (UNTAET) that Eurico be handed over for trial in the East Timor capital of Dili, which was based on a memorandum of understanding signed by the Indonesian government and UNTAET in April.

Marzuki, instead, has allowed UNTAET officials to question Eurico here.

The country's top figures including Speaker to the People's Consultative Assembly Amien Rais and Speaker to the House of Representatives Akbar Tandjung urged the government not to allow Eurico's extradition since he had chosen to remain an Indonesian citizen.

Eurico said that he was willing to be stationed anywhere, as long as it was still in Indonesia, after his release which he believed would occur in two or three days.

"I certainly would like to go back to Kupang (East Nusa Tenggara) because that's where my wife and kid live," Eurico said.

Eurico said that he did not want to go back to East Timor because UNTAET had been unfair to him.

"They act as if the human rights violation in East Timor only occurred after the ballot last year," Eurico said, adding that the pro-independence group Conselho National Resistancia Timorese (CNRT) and its armed wing Falintil had also murdered some pro- Indonesia figures.

Eurico also handed out two pages of papers to reporters which contained 13 names of pro-Indonesia figures who had been murdered by CNRT/Falintil between Aug. 1997 and Aug. 1999.

The pro-integrationists lost the UN-sponsored ballot to pro- independence supporters in August last year. (jaw)