Friday August 6, 05:20 PM

Indonesia Clears Officers of Timor Abuse

Four Indonesian security officers convicted over atrocities during East Timor's 1999 independence vote have been acquitted on appeal, officials, angering human rights groups who called the trials a sham.

Prosecutor I Ketut Murtika said the four, including Major General Adam Damiri, the most senior military officer to face trial for the bloodshed surrounding the United Nations-backed ballot, were cleared on July 29. ADVERTISEMENT

The appeals court also reduced a 10-year jail term imposed on Eurico Guterres, a pro-Jakarta militiaman who oversaw the murder and torture of independence supporters, Murtika said.

Human rights groups slammed the rulings, which now mean trials set up to deflect pressure for an international tribunal have failed to convict any Indonesian police or military for the violence in which an estimated 1,400 were killed.

Hendardi, head of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, said the appeal court's verdicts were "clear evidence that the whole human rights trials are a sham".

As well as Damiri, who had faced three years in jail, the court also quashed terms against Indonesia's ex-military chief in East Timor, Colonel Nur Muis and the country's former police and military commanders in Dili.

All the men, including Guterres, have been free pending the appeals.

Entire towns were razed in the violence surrounding the August 1999 independence vote when Indonesian troops and their local militia proxies waged a savage but futile intimidation campaign.

Indonesia set up its own special court in 2001 to investigate the killings, but out of 18 defendants tried, only East Timor's former governor Abilio Jose Soares has been put behind bars where he is now serving a three-year term.

The trials drew international disapproval over the failure to secure convictions.

The trials were criticised from the outset, chiefly for their failure to try General Wiranto, who was Indonesia's military chief at the time of the killings.

Wiranto, now head of Indonesia's ruling Golkar party, is a candidate in this year's presidential elections, but was eliminated in a first round of voting on July 5.

"By excluding Wiranto as key suspect in the first place and now with these rulings, we can see that the establishment of the rights court was only the government's attempt to ease international pressure following the Timor mayhem," Hendardi said.

Prominent Indonesian activist Munir of the human rights group Imparsial, described the ruling as "a mere show which real aim was to eliminate justice from being held".

"The ruling is to cleanse those military and police officers from human rights abuse charges. There is no independence in the law any more in this country," he said.

East Timor, which won full independence in 2002, has downplayed the importance of the trials, insisting that forging good ties with Indonesia were a greater priority.