Ex-officer acquitted in Timor case
Ex-officer acquitted in Timor case
Agence France-Presse, Jakarta
The Supreme Court has upheld the acquittal of a former police officer charged with gross human rights violations in connection with two massacres in East Timor in 1999, an official said on Thursday.
Three judges from a five-man panel rejected on Wednesday a prosecution appeal against the acquittal of former Dili Police chief Hulman Gultom, said an official with the Supreme Court's criminal appeals unit.
"The ruling was issued on Wednesday but a copy of it has not yet been sent to prosecutors in the case," the official, who declined to be named, told AFP.
Militia gangs, which the United Nations has said were recruited and directed by Indonesia's military, went on an arson and killing spree before and after the East Timorese voted for independence in a UN-sponsored ballot in August 1999.
They killed about 1,400 independence supporters and laid waste to much of the infrastructure in the half-island, which was a Portuguese colony before Indonesia annexed and invaded it in the mid-1970s.
The country's human rights court sentenced Hulman to three years in jail in 2003 for failing to stop two attacks by Jakarta- backed militias in Dili in April and September 1999 and failing to stop his subordinates joining in the assaults.
That court said Hulman, who headed the Dili Police between June 1998 and September 1999, ignored militia attacks on the home of pro-independence leader Manuel Carrascalao on April 17, and on the Dili diocese on Sept. 5, 1999.
But last July the Jakarta human rights appellate court acquitted Hulman, prompting prosecutors to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Attorney General Abdul Rachman Saleh told AFP on Thursday he would ask the Supreme Court to carry out a judicial review of Hulman's case.
An Indonesian tribunal set up to try military officers, officials and a former militia chief for atrocities in East Timor has drawn international criticism for failing to jail any Indonesians, prompting calls for an international tribunal.
Former militia chief Eurico Guterres remains the only defendant whose five-year jail appeal is still being discussed by the Supreme Court.
Leaders of the two neighboring nations have rejected prosecutions in favor of looking toward the future between tiny East Timor and the giant Indonesia.
They have set up a bilateral commission of truth and friendship to address past right violations. East Timor gained full independence in May 2002 after more than two years of UN stewardship.