Former militiaman gets six years for murder

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

An East Timorese militiaman was sentenced on Thursday to six years imprisonment for the second-degree murder of a New Zealand peacekeeping force soldier two years ago.

The Central Jakarta District Court dropped the first charge of murder because defendant Yacobus Bere and victim Pvt. Leonard William Manning did not know each other and did not have any personal animosity toward each other, according to presiding judge I Nengah Suriada.

Prosecutor Muhammad Syafei, who had earlier demanded the court give Bere a 12-year jail term for manslaughter, said he would appeal against the sentence.

On the one hand, the court said Bere had committed the crime in a sadistic fashion, but on the other, it was believed that the cause of the killing was "patriotism."

"The killing was motivated by his patriotism because he did not want to see the country trampled by the enemy," Nengah said in the verdict.

The 37-year-old defendant was a prointegration militiaman.

The court said that Bere, along with five other men, killed Manning, 24, near Suai in East Timor, a former province of Indonesia, on July 24, 2000, when the latter was serving with the international peacekeeping force.

They were herding cows when the force tracked them down. Bere shot Manning and took a sword that had been brought by one of his friends, approaching the victim to ensure that he was dead. No witness testified that Bere had used the sword to injure the victim, but according to an autopsy report, Manning was shot twice, his ears severed and throat slashed.

At present, the same court is hearing the cases of defendants Fabianus Ulu, Yohanes Timo and Gabriel Halenoni. Prosecutors have sought a 10-year jail term for each of them.

Two other defendants will be tried soon.

Bere's lawyer Nicholay AB said his client would appeal to the Supreme Court directly instead of the Jakarta high court.

New Zealand Ambassador Chris Elder told The Jakarta Post that he was pleased with the guilty verdict as the trial had been conducted well. But he said he could not comment of the length of the sentence.

"We were not directly involved with the prosecution. We will consider (the sentence) further," he said outside the courtroom.

But the verdict sparked criticism from the New Zealand government and the United Nations, AFP reported.

"We are disappointed at the short sentence, given the gravity of the crime, and will ask the Indonesian authorities if they will look at grounds for an appeal," Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister, said.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, head of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor commented, "The killing of a UN peacekeeper in cold blood should be considered a crime of severe gravity and the sentence should reflect that."

Both New Zealand and the UN urged the government to appeal to a higher court to increase the sentence.

Indonesia convicted six militiamen last year for the murder of three UN aid workers in West Timor. They were sentenced to 10 months to 20 months in jail.

After the international community and the UN expressed their disagreement with the length of the sentences, the high court increased them to five years to seven years in jail.