Sweden drops charges against Aceh rebels
Sweden drops charges against Aceh rebels
Stephen Brown, Reuters/Stockholm
Sweden on Friday dropped criminal charges against Aceh rebel leaders who have led their independence struggle from exile in Stockholm for nearly 30 years but are now holding peace talks with Indonesia.
Two top political leaders of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) were detained last June on charges of breaking international law by directing the armed struggle from afar. They were freed after a few days pending a criminal investigation.
But Sweden's chief international prosecutor, Tomas Lindstrand, found there was insufficient evidence that the men GAM considers its prime minister and foreign minister, Malik Mahmud and Zaini Abdullah, were directly responsible for crimes in Aceh.
"The Indonesians have used all means to defame GAM including trying to get its leaders arrested and cut off from the people, but it has backfired because the Swedes value human rights and justice," GAM spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah told Reuters.
The prosecutor's findings, quoted by Swedish news agency TT, said the evidence including testimony from Indonesia "did not give a clear and unambiguous picture of the leadership in Sweden's eventual role in the crimes committed in Indonesia".
The GAM leadership fled to asylum in Sweden after declaring independence from Indonesia in 1976. But jungle fighters stayed on in the devoutly Muslim province to combat Indonesian troops and some 12,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed.
Next month GAM and senior Indonesian negotiators will meet in Helsinki for the fourth time this year to seek peace in the gas- rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
Both sides were ready to talk peace after the province took the brunt of the Dec. 26 tsunami, in which nearly 130,000 people in Aceh lost their lives and more than 500,000 became homeless.
GAM says Indonesian troops continue to commit atrocities in Aceh despite the talks, while Indonesian military commanders say they will continue to fight the rebels until a cease-fire or peace deal is struck. But they deny a military build-up.
Both sides have been accused of human rights abuses and the government in Jakarta had long lobbied Sweden to take action against GAM for ordering attacks on Indonesian soldiers.
Indonesia also pointed the finger at the frail, 80-year-old prince whom GAM considers Aceh's head of state, Hasan di Tiro, who lives in a modest flat in a Stockholm suburb. But Swedish authorities considered him too old and frail to be prosecuted.