The ad hoc rights tribunal sentenced on Friday a retired general to 10 years in prison for committing gross human rights violations in the massacre 20 years ago, which killed, according to official accounts, at least 14 protesters and injured dozens of others.

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Rudolph Butar-Butar, a lieutenant colonel and former head of the North Jakarta military district, was found guilty by a five-member panel of judges of failing to prevent or halt what they called a systematic killing of civilians in September 1984.

The verdict, the first to be handed down in the Tanjung Priok massacre tribunal, is the minimum sentence for rights abusers as stipulated under Law No. 26/2000. Prosecutors had also sought a 10-year imprisonment for Butar-Butar.

Presiding judge Tjitjut Sutiyarso said the defendant was guilty of violating Law No. 26/2000 on human rights for his failure to restrain military personnel under his command from shooting civilians protesting the detention of four of their colleagues in the military compound. They barely reached the compound when troops opened fire.

The panel of judges also ordered the government to pay compensation to families of the victims who had perished in the incident, one of the most brutal incidents during the 32-year authoritarian rule of former president Soeharto.

The defense lawyers said they would appeal the verdict.

Looking appalled, Butar-Butar said he was very disappointed with the verdict. "I was just doing my duty to the country," Butar-Butar told reporters.

Usman Hamid, coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), a local non-governmental organization which has long represented the Priok victims, praised the panel of judges saying that the
verdict indicated its independence and resoluteness in punishing human rights violators.

"However, there is still a long way to go and we hope that the higher courts that will hear the appeal will uphold the verdict," Usman said.

Butar-Butar is one among 14 retired and active military personnel who have been indicted for their role in the massacre. All have been charged under the Human Rights Law, which carries a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a
maximum penalty of death.

During the incident Butar-Butar was in charge of the 40-strong Platoon III of the Air Defense Artillery Battalion based in North Jakarta. The platoon was deployed on orders from the district military command to guard the military compound and important public facilities in the vicinity against possible attack from protesters.

The Tanjung Priok rights tribunal is the second major attempt to bring to justice military personnel responsible for past human rights abuses, after a similar trial on East Timor.

In the East Timor trial, 18 military and police personnel as well as civilian leaders were brought to court for failing to prevent gross rights abuses in the bloody mayhem following the province's breakaway from Indonesia through a
United Nations-sponsored referendum.

However, 12 of the defendants, mostly military and police personnel, were acquitted.

The former military commander overseeing East Timor Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri, remains free pending appeal while civilian governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares recently had his 10-year prison sentence upheld by the Supreme Court.

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