Portugal guarding Guterres' family

Portugal guarding Guterres' family

LISBON (Reuters): Portugal has put the family of a former Timorese militia leader under 24-hour guard because of death threats, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.

The wife and four children of former pro-Indonesia militia chief Eurico Guterres have been in Portugal for about a month and are under tight security, spokesman Horacio Vale Cesar said.

"This is not a political case," he said. "This has everything to do with the physical and psychological welfare of the woman and children involved."

Guterres led the Indonesian-backed militia in the bloody run- up to the 1999 referendum that set the tiny Southeast Asian territory of East Timor on the road to independence.

An Indonesian court convicted him of inciting violence and he was released from jail in June.