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.