Not all E. Timor rights cases to be sent to court

JAKARTA (JP): In compliance with a presidential decree on the establishment of an East Timorese human rights tribunal, some suspected rights abusers will not be brought before the tribunal.

Attorney General's Office spokesman Muljohardjo said Article 2 of Presidential Decree No. 53/2001 stipulated that the tribunal would hear only those cases that took place following the East Timorese direct ballot on Aug. 30, 1999.

"We will reveal later which of the 12 dossiers on 18 suspects will be set aside," he said on Tuesday.

A joint team investigated five incidents of suspected human rights abuses that occurred before and after the ballot. The team named 22 suspects and prepared 12 dossiers on 18 of the suspects.

The four other suspects, all members of East Timorese prointegration militias, have not been questioned because their whereabouts are unknown.

The suspects are military and police officers, local administrators and members of prointegration militias, including militia leader Eurico Guterres who was sentenced on Monday to six months in jail on a separate charge.

The joint investigative team consists of state prosecutors, military prosecutors, the military police, officials from the home affairs ministry and legal experts.

The team did not name any suspects in the shooting death of Financial Times correspondent Sander Thoenes in Becora, East Dili, on Sept. 21, 1999, because of a lack of evidence.

Two postballot incidents investigated by the team were the Sept. 6 attack on the Dili home of Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and the September massacre of refugees in a church in Suai, which left at least 26 died.

The Attorney General's Office, which heads the joint team, has said it is ready to submit the dossiers as soon as the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights and the Supreme Court appoint the ad hoc judges to the tribunal.

President Abdurrahman Wahid issued last week a decree on the establishment of an ad hoc human rights tribunal to prosecute gross rights abuses in East Timor and in the 1984 Tanjung Priok bloodshed.

The decree stipulates that the tribunal will sit at the Central Jakarta District Court and its expenses will be covered by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.

The court will have three months to try a case, as stipulated in Law No. 39/2000 on the tribunal. (bby)