Former militiamen found not guilty of murder charges

Former militiamen found not guilty of murder charges

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Central Jakarta District Court acquitted three former pro-
Jakarta East Timorese militiamen on Wednesday for the murder of a
New Zealand peacekeeping soldier in East Timor in July 2000.

Defendants Gabriel Halenoni, Yohanes Timo and Fabianus Ulu
were held not responsible for the killing of Private Leonard
William Manning, 24, although they were present during the
incident, according to the court's ruling.

"The victim died from a bullet (shot) by Yacobus Bere
therefore, the defendants were not proven guilty of premeditated
murder or manslaughter," presiding Judge Iskandar Tjakke said
when reading out the verdict.

On March 7, the same court sentenced Bere to six years in jail
for murdering Manning and mutilating his corpse on July 24, 2000
near Suai in East Timor.

Halenoni and Timo were tried together, while Ulu was tried
separately, so that the defendants were allowed to testify
against each other.

The two trials were handled by the same three-member panel of
judges with members I Nengah Suriada and M.D. Sunusi.

After Tjakke finished reading the verdict in the first trial,
he asked Halenoni and Timo if they accepted it. The two
defendants looked confused and later smiled and shook the judges'
hands after their lawyer, Nicholay AB, explained the verdict.

Chief prosecutor Firdaus Dewilmar said that he would appeal
the rulings to the Supreme Court.

"In Bere's verdict, the court ruled that Manning was killed by
Bere and his accomplices, but it said now that they were not
responsible for the murder," Firdaus said.

New Zealand Ambassador Chris Elder, who attended the hearing,
told reporters that he would report the case to Wellington and to
Manning's family.

But, he added, "We're not at the stage to intervene in
Indonesia's justice system."

In Wednesday's verdict, the court ruled that the murder was
committed in the presence of five other men, including the three
defendants, while they were herding cows.

The two other defendants will be tried at the same court soon.

The verdict contradicted the one made on March 7, when the
panel of judges was presided over by I Nengah Suriada. In the
earlier verdict, they said that Bere committed the murder along
with the five other men.

Manning's force was tracking militiamen following the
territory's vote in a September 1999 referendum for independence.

Even though Bere was convicted, at that time, New Zealand
Prime Minister Helen Clark expressed disappointment at the short
length of sentence.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, head of the United Nations
Transitional of East Timor also criticized the sentence.

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 prison
terms of 10 months to 20 months.

After the international community and the UN expressed outrage
with that sentence, the high court relented and increased their
jail terms to five to seven years.