Jailed Xanana has medical checkup
Jailed Xanana has medical checkup
JAKARTA (JP): Jailed East Timor guerrilla leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao left the Cipinang Correctional Institution on Tuesday for a medical checkup, a senior Ministry of Justice official announced.
"There was nothing special about it. He underwent a medical checkup like other convicts. Every convict who requires such a checkup is given permission to leave," Baharuddin Lopa, the Director General for Correctional Institutions, told Antara.
"What's the big deal? There's no need to blow this out of proportion. He could become big headed."
Xanana, the former commander of the armed separatist group Fretilin, is currently serving a 20-year jail term for his guerrilla activities. The sentence was meted out by the Dili District Court in East Timor two years ago.
He was given permission to leave the prison temporarily after his Indonesian lawyers filed a formal application on Monday saying that their client required private medical treatment for a kidney infection.
Lopa said all convicts are entitled to private medical treatment although all correctional institutions are staffed with doctors.
An official of the local representative of the International Red Cross Committee was quoted by Reuters as saying on Tuesday that Xanana's condition was not serious. The official, who was not identified, visited Xanana in Cipinang on Friday.
Lopa denied earlier press reports that the permission had been given in response to Xanana's alleged threat to go on a hunger strike.
A Fretilin leader in exile, Jose Ramos Horta, was earlier reported to have said that Xanana would go on a hunger strike if his request for a medical checkup was denied.
"That's a lie," Lopa said. "Xanana is not on a hunger strike".
"Even if Xanana goes on a hunger strike, we won't stop him. He's the one who's going to suffer. We're not going to force him to eat."
Lopa cautioned the media to not blow news about Xanana out of proportion."If Xanana refuses to eat, you turn it into news. But if other convicts go on a hunger strike, not a single journalist will report it. What's so special about Xanana?"
Xanana is manipulating the press so that he always stays in the news, he said. "Don't let Xanana use you." (emb)