Former militia members jailed up to 33 years for crime against humanity
Former militia members jailed up to 33 years for crime against humanity
Bronwyn Curran, Agence France-Presse, Jakarta
Ten members of a gang responsible for one of the worst massacres
linked to East Timor's 1999 vote for independence were on Tuesday
found guilty of crimes against humanity and given jail terms of
up to 33 years, United Nations officials in Dili said.
The members of the pro-Indonesia Tim Alpha militia were
convicted of the Sept. 25, 1999 slaying of two nuns, three
priests and an Indonesian journalist, as well as a number of
other murders in the Los Palos sub-district of the territory's
far-eastern district of Lautem.
The three-judge Special Panel for Serious Crimes, set up by
East Timor's UN-backed transitional administration and operating
in the Dili District Court, also found the militia members guilty
of torture, persecution and forced deportation, a UN spokesman
told AFP by phone from Dili.
They are the first people to be convicted of crimes against
humanity in connection with the violence that surrounded East
Timor's Aug. 30 vote to secede from Indonesia, which had occupied
the territory since 1976.
The violence was led by pro-Jakarta militias advocating
greater autonomy under continued Indonesian rule, with the help
of elements of the Indonesian security forces.
Seven Tim Alpha militiamen murdered two nuns, three priests
and an Indonesian journalist when they attacked their convoy as
it fled Los Palos on Sept. 25, 1999. Two church workers and a
passer-by were also killed in the attack.
The militia was found guilty of a total of 13 murders in five
separate incidents, the burning of several villages and the
forced deportation of their residents to Indonesian-ruled West
Timor (East Nusa Tenggara province) in the wake of the
independence vote.
Four of the defendants were given multiple jail sentences
Tuesday, with the militia's commander, Joni Marques, receiving
the longest cumulative sentence of 33 years and four months.
The seven men, including Marques, who were convicted of the
ambush and murder of the clergy received the highest sentences
yet under East Timor's new justice system, ranging between 17 and
19 years imprisonment.
An alleged 11th member of the group, an Indonesian special
forces lieutenant, remains at large and was not sentenced.
Prosecutors have indicted him and served an arrest warrant for
him on Indonesia's Attorney General.
East Timor's overwhelming vote for independence triggered a
wave of killings, arson and destruction by militias that was
actively backed by elements of the Indonesian military. Estimates
of how many people were killed range from some 600 to 2,000.
Delivering the verdict to a packed Dili courthouse, Brazilian
judge Marcello da Costa, who heads the panel, announced that it
had established beyond doubt that there was an "extensive attack
by the pro-autonomy armed groups supported by the Indonesian
authorities targeting the civilian population" in East Timor in
1999.
That finding was necessary to prove the widespread or
systematic nature of the attacks that led to the charges of
crimes against humanity, and will likely serve as a backdrop for
similar trials in the future, a statement by the UN
administration in East Timor said.
Dili-based legal observers, the Judicial System Monitoring
Program, said in a press release that the panel had also found
"that contrary to many of the claims of the accused, they were
aware that their acts were part of that campaign".
Former chief prosecutor Mohamed Othman alleged in an
indictment filed in March that Tim Alpha members were armed,
equipped and trained by Indonesian soldiers and were "allowed to
act with impunity".
The special panel was constituted last year to try cases of
genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, murder, sexual
offenses and torture. The other two judges are from East Timor
and Burundi.