Men from E. Timor jailed for UNHCR murders

JAKARTA (JP): The North Jakarta District Court dropped manslaughter charges on Friday against three of the six men from East Timor tried for the murders of three UN aid workers in West Timor last year, immediately prompting anger from the United Nations.

Presiding judge Anak Agung Gde Dalem sentenced the three to between 16 months and 20 months imprisonment on the lesser charge of fomenting violence that resulted in the death of the three UN workers.

Julius Naisama got 20 months, while Jose Francisco and Joao Alvez da Cruz got 16 months each.

Judge Anak Agung contended the three escaped manslaughter charges because of a few mitigating factors, including that they had admitted to stabbing the victims, but not being involved in their burning.

"The attack was carried out by a mob and not only by them. The result of the autopsy also showed that the victims' bodies were badly damaged, making it difficult to identify who committed the killing," the judge told the court.

He said that the three convicts had admitted stabbing two of the victims during the frenzied attack by East Timorese refugees in the West Timor border town of Atambua in September last year.

Three workers of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) -- American Carlos Casaeres, Ethiopian Samson Aregahegn and Croat Peril Simundze -- were hacked to death and then burned.

The slayings provoked an international outcry and sparked the exodus of international aid workers from West Timor, leaving about one hundred thousand East Timorese refugees in the hands of Indonesian authorities and local aid workers.

In the next trial in the same courtroom that was also presided over by judge Anak Agung, the judges found the other three East Timorese guilty of conspiring to foment violence that resulted in the damage of property belonging to UNHCR.

The judges sentenced Xisto Pereira and Joao Martins to 10 months in jail each and Serafin Ximenes to 15 months in jail. The three had originally been charged with violence leading to the death of a person or persons.

The prosecutors and defense lawyers said they would notify the court next Friday of whether or not they would appeal the sentences.

"The judges' considerations have fulfilled the people's sense of justice by not placing all the blame on the defendants," defense lawyers chief Suhardi Somomoelyono told reporters.

Julius Naisama, who got the heaviest sentence, said after the court session he did not regret what he had done and accepted the sentence.

"I proudly accept the sentence because I did what I had to do to defend the country's red and white flag," he said.

Julius Naisama and the other five convicts all wore identical red and white shirts and baseball caps that showed their identity as prointegration fighters.

The UNHCR and United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) representative office in Jakarta both expressed their outrage.

"We think it is particularly outrageous that the defendants' unhappiness with the result of the (1999) East Timor independence referendum was mentioned by the judge as a mitigating circumstance," UNTAET political affairs officer Elisabeth Moorphy told AFP.

In Geneva, UNHCR officials blasted the length of the sentences of the six as a "mockery" of the international community's sense of justice, describing the verdicts as "deeply disturbing".

"The sentences make a mockery of the international community's insistence that justice be done in this horrific case," the UNHCR said in a statement.

"Today's sentencing ... flies in the face of world opinion and is an affront to the memory of those humanitarians who gave their lives in the service of others," UNHCR said.

It intended to study the court decision and consider what further legal action it might take in response to the lenient sentences on the six. (bby)