U.S. openly critical of RI prosecutors in E. Timor rights trial

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The inability of state prosecutors to construct a case regarding numerous murders and incidents of torture in East Timor in 1999 into a crimes against humanity indictment has led to the acquittal of six rights defendants last week, an activist said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the U.S. broke its silence on Tuesday, expressing disappointment over Indonesian prosecutors' handling of human rights cases that ended in acquittals.

Ifdhal Kasim of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam) said the prosecutors had described various murders and tortures in East Timor in 1999 as part of local bloody conflicts between prointegration and proindependence militias, thus branding them as ordinary crimes.

"They (the prosecutors) did not try to cite police or military involvement in creating the conflict, but only charged them with failing to prevent or stop their middle- and low-ranking officers from resorting to violence in East Timor. It's not surprising that the judges acquitted the defendants of the charges," Ifdhal told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

According to Ifdhal, a crime against humanity indictment would only have been valid if it had revealed the existence of state policy to attack people there.

"Prosecutors should also have elaborated on what the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) had earlier identified as widespread, systematic murders and torture of civilians," Ifdhal said.

"They clearly did not uphold the interests of victims but simply played a role in preventing the cases being heard by an international tribunal."

The country's first-ever human rights tribunal acquitted last week six military and police officers of gross human rights violations in East Timor after its population voted to break away from Indonesia in 1999 after a UN-organized referendum.

Eighteen military and police officers, government officials and civilians have been brought before the tribunal over atrocities committed before and after the plebiscite, but so far only former East Timor governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares has been found guilty and sentenced to three years in jail, far below the 10 years demanded by prosecutors.

All the verdicts have drawn criticism at home and abroad. Calls for the establishment of an international tribunal are mounting.

In Washington, deputy State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker said Washington was not pleased with the prosecutions of the seven defendants, six of whom were found not guilty of committing abuses in East Timor in 1999.

"Without commenting on the specific verdicts, which are subject to appeal, the U.S. is nevertheless disappointed that prosecutors in these cases did not fully use the resources and evidence available to them from the UN and elsewhere in documenting the atrocities that occurred in East Timor," he said in a statement.

Separately, spokesman for the Attorney General's Office Barman Zahir denied claims that state prosecutors had not maximized efforts to charge the suspects with human rights violations in East Timor.

"We have taken all necessary action, presenting both weak and strong witnesses and evidence to the trial. It's the judges who did not have the courage to find the six suspects guilty," he told the Post.