Men from E. Timor jailed for UNHCR murders

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)