August 6, 2004 Friday

Indonesia Court Acquits Generals in 1999 East Timor Violence

JAKARTA, Aug. 6

An Indonesian appeals court has acquitted two generals and two other military and police officers, earlier sentenced to jail by a lower court for involvement in the gross human rights violations in East Timor in 1999, and reduced the sentence of a militia leader, a judge said Friday.

The decisions were made July 29, but were not published until late Thursday
this week.

Judge Achmad Sutarmadi of the Ad Hoc Human Rights High Court told Kyodo
News that a judicial panel handling the case overturned a lower court's finding that Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri, former Udayana military commander who supervised areas including East Timor, was guilty.

'Therefore, we meet an appeal made by prosecutors in the (lower) Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal to acquit him,' Sutarmadi said.

Among the 18 people tried by the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal, most of them
with military or police backgrounds, over their involvement in the East Timor violence, Damiri was the highest ranking officer and was the only suspect for whom the prosecutors sought acquittal.

Last year, the human rights tribunal handed down a three-year jail sentence
to Damiri after a judicial panel ruled the general was guilty of gross human rights violations in East Timor in 1999, before and after the then Indonesian-occupied territory conducted a U.N.-sponsored ballot on independence.

According to the tribunal judges, the general was responsible for widespread violence and human rights violations launched by pro-Indonesia East Timorese militia groups at that time.

The appeals court also acquitted Brig. Gen. Noer Muis, who was East Timor
military commander when the pro-Jakarta militiamen attacked pro-independence refugees in the Ave Maria Church in the western city Suai on Sept. 6, 1999, resulting in the death of 27 people, including three Roman Catholic priests.

Under his command, attacks on hundreds of pro-independence refugees taking
shelter in the Dili Diocese offices and on the residence of Dili Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo also occurred.

The militia attacks on the diocese office Sept. 5, 1999, and on Belo's residence the following day claimed at least 13 lives.

Muis, who was sentenced to five years in jail by the Ad Hoc Human Rights
Tribunal, was a colonel during the 1999 attacks and had just begun his term when the violence occurred.

Besides the two generals, the high court also acquitted Lt. Col. Hulman Gultom, former Indonesian police chief in East Timor's capital Dili, and former Dili military district commander Lt. Col. Soedjarwo.

Earlier, they were sentenced to three and five years in jail, respectively.

The appeals court upheld the conviction of Aitarak militia leader Eurico Guterres, but it reduced his sentence from 10 years to five years in jail.

'The judicial panel considered his jail term handed down by the lower court too high,' Sutarmadi said.

'For humanitarian reasons, they eventually decided to reduce the sentence based on the considerations that he was found guilty of leading a militia group, but he has been 'expelled' from his own motherland,' he said.

Attorney General Office Spokesman Kemas Yahya Rahman said the prosecutors
have not decided whether they will appeal the results of the appeals to the Supreme Court.

In the case of Damiri, however, 'logically, we don't need to appeal, because we wanted him to be acquitted from the charge,' Rahman told Kyodo News.

Of the 18 defendants involved in the East Timor violence, 10 military and police officers and an East Timorese civilian were acquitted by the Supreme
Court. Another general is still in the process of appeal at the top court, but remains free.

Former East Timor Gov. Abilio Jose Osorio Soares began serving his three-year jail term last month, after the Supreme Court upheld the guilty verdict on him.

Retired Gen. Wiranto, who many say holds ultimate responsibility for the
bloodshed and destruction in East Timor because he commanded Indonesia's
armed forces at the time, was not called before the tribunal as a defendant.

Wiranto has denied allegations the military was involved in the violence, and frequently appeared as a defense witness in the trials of police and military officers.

Militia groups armed and supported by the Indonesian military began escalating violence and intimidation against pro-independence East Timorese in April 1999, ahead of a U.N.-organized independence referendum Aug. 30 that year.

After the result was announced Sept. 4, 1999, the military and militia groups launched a campaign of wanton violence and destruction across the former Portuguese colony that had been invaded by Indonesia in 1975.

East Timor became independent May 20, 2002.