Court Acquits Final Indonesian
Officers over Timor Bloodshed
August 5, 2004 10:09pm
AP Online
JAKARTA, East Timor_An appeal court has overturned the convictions
of four
Indonesian security officers _ including the highest ranking military
officer to face trial _ implicated in the violence in East Timor
in 1999, a court clerk said Friday.
Stephanus Agung Pramono said the court had also halved the sentence
of
notorious militia leader Eurico Guterres over his role in the bloodshed
that swept East Timor when it voted in a U.N.-sponsored ballot to
break from 24 years of Indonesian rule.
The verdicts mean that the human rights tribunal convened in Jakarta
to try
the violence has failed to punish any Indonesian police or military
officers. They will likely lead to fresh criticism of the process
_ which local and foreign rights groups have already dismissed as
a whitewash.
Twelve police and military officers have already been acquitted
over the rampage by vengeful troops and their militia proxies in
which at least 2,000 were killed and much of East Timor destroyed.
The three-year sentence handed down on Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri, the
highest
ranking officer to face trial, had been overturned, said Pramono.
Jail terms for two other military officers and police general were
also quashed, he said. The men have been free during the appeal
process.
"The men have been declared not guilty. It was decided two
weeks ago," said
Pramono.
Indonesian appeal courts sit in closed session, and their decisions
are rarely announced at the time.
Eurico Guterres, who is ethnically East Timorese, had his ten-year
sentence
cut in half by the court, said Pramono. Guterres was seen by witnesses
in East Timor leading the violence.
The only other person to be convicted by the tribunal was the territory's
last governor Abilio Jose Soares. Soares, who is also East Timorese,
began serving a three-year term in Jakarta last month.
Jakarta established the court after the violence in an apparent
effort to defuse calls for an ad hoc U.N. tribunal akin to those
for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
East Timor has not aggressively pushed Indonesia to punish those
responsible for the violence, saying that maintaining good ties
between the two countries was more important.
The United States has also criticized the trials, but it too needs
to stay on good terms with Indonesia, which it sees as a key partner
in the war on terrorism.
