Three East Timorese to testify in rights' violation trials
Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
East Timor citizen Dominggos dos Santos Mouzinho arrived here on Monday under heavy escort to testify in a hearing on Tuesday as part of the human rights tribunal against suspected rights violators in the 1999 East Timor atrocities.
The victim witness had been expected to arrive on Sunday but the airplane flight was delayed.
Jakarta policemen and the human rights ad hoc prosecutors escorted Mouzinho, who was accompanied by two staff of the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) serious crime unit and an interpreter, to the state's safe house, Attorney General's Office spokesman Barman Zahir told a media briefing on Monday.
Mouzinho will fly back to East Timor immediately after Tuesday's hearing and return on Wednesday along with two other victim witnesses: Emmilio Barreto and Joao Pereira.
The three will testify at other hearings on Thursday and will then take the flight home on Friday.
Security has become the key issue determining the presence of victim witnesses in the courtroom, as four of eight witnesses summoned by the prosecutors have refused to testify against the defendants, who are mostly military and police officers.
The victim witnesses' appearance is the most eagerly awaited moment in Indonesia's first human rights trial because, as many people believe, they will be the key to securing convictions, as all of the witnesses produced thus far at the hearings have been the subordinates or colleagues of the defendants.
The Attorney General's Office, in cooperation with the National Police, will bear the expense of protection of the victim witnesses, including their accommodation while in Jakarta.
The ad hoc human rights prosecutors summoned Mouzinho to testify against five former officials of Covalima regency, some 300 kilometers south of the capital, Dili. They are believed to have been responsible for the death of civilian refugees in the area.
The defendants are former Covalima regent Col. Herman Sedyono, former Suai military commander Lt. Col. Liliek Koeshadianto, his successor Lt. Col. Sugito, former Suai military command chief of staff Capt. Achmad Syamsudin and former Suai Police precinct chief Lt. Col. Gatot Subiaktoro.
They are charged with involvement in the shootings of at least 27 civilians, including three Catholic priests, who took refuge in the St. Ave Maria Church in Suai, Covalima regency, on Sept. 6, 1999, two days after the results of the independence vote in East Timor were announced.
Mouzinho is one of the survivors of the shootings.
The dead were buried at Metamauk village in Wemasa, Belu regency, East Nusa Tenggara, in the presence of Sugito.
Early investigations revealed that the civilians, who were mostly women and children, were attacked by a group of pro- Jakarta militia, Laksaur.