Rights court acquits military officer
Rights court acquits military officer
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Three days after sentencing an Army officer to five years in jail but allowing him to walk free pending an appeal, an ad hoc human rights court acquitted on Monday a military officer of gross human rights violations in East Timor.
Col. Yayat Sudrajat, former task force commander at the Dili Military Command, was found not guilty of failing to prevent an attack on the Suai Church in Liquica on April 6, 1999. The attack claimed the lives of at least 22 people.
Yayat is currently an assistant to the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) chief Maj. Gen. Sriyanto, in charge of logistics.
"Col. Yayat Sudrajat has not been legally and convincingly proven of having engaged in the crime of human rights violations as charged," presiding judge Cicut Sutiarso said.
Cicut said the slaughter at the Suai Church was carried out by the militia Besi Merah Putih (Red-White Iron), which was not under the command of Yayat. "Thus the defendant cannot be held responsible for the attack."
Yayat told the court he accepted the verdict.
Prosecutor Yusuf, who demanded Yayat be jailed for 10 years, said he would consider the verdict for two weeks before deciding whether to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.
He disagreed with the panel of judges who acquitted Yayat, saying the judges should have considered that the defendant was a Kopassus intelligence officer, whose subordinates must have informed him beforehand of the impending Suai Church massacre.
"But he did nothing to prevent the attack on the Suai Church although he knew about it," Yusuf said.
Various parties have accused Yayat of close links with the militias that rampaged through East Timor, and of even distributing weapons to them.
With Yayat's acquittal, 10 military and police officers and one civilian have been found not guilty by the ad hoc court.
Two civilians, former East Timor governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares and former militia leader Eurico Guterres, were convicted of rights violations and sentenced to three years and 10 years in jail, respectively.
The former chief of the Dili military district, Lt. Col. Soedjarwo, is the only military person to have been found guilty by the court and sentenced, in this case to a five-year prison term. However, none of the three have begun serving their sentences, pending their appeals.
The court is still hearing testimony in the cases of Brig. Gen. M. Noer Muis and Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri, former chief of the Udayana Military Command overseeing security in Bali, Nusa Tenggara and the then-East Timor province.
Human rights activists have labeled the ad hoc court trials as mere theatrics.
They have called for the establishment of an international tribunal to punish those guilty of crimes against humanity in East Timor.
Over 1,000 people died and 250,000 others fled to East Nusa Tenggara in the violence in East Timor before, during and after an independence vote in August 1999.