Court Issues Warrant for Wiranto

By Matthew Moore, Herald Correspondent in Jakarta

A United Nations-funded court in East Timor has issued an arrest warrant for the Indonesian presidential candidate Wiranto, beginning a process that could see the former military commander arrested if he leaves the country.

An American judge at the Special Panel for Serious Crimes in East Timor issued the warrant against Wiranto, a former general, yesterday. The warrant comes nearly 16 months after UN prosecutors handed the court 15,000 pages of
evidence as part of an indictment against Wiranto and seven other officers for crimes against humanity committed around the time of East Timor's 1999 vote for independence.

Although Wiranto is unlikely to be immediately arrested, the decision of the Dili court yesterday to accept the evidence of prosecutors and order his arrest and trial is a serious blow to his election campaign.

Wiranto was in Surabaya in East Java yesterday, briefing officials from his Golkar party on campaign strategy for the July 5 poll.

His campaign manager, Tito Sulistio, questioned whether the court had issued a warrant as announced in a statement from the UN-funded Serious Crimes Unit in East Timor. "We have not seen any letter; I want to see a formal letter
saying this before I will respond," he said.

As commander of Indonesia's armed forces at the time of the 1999 vote for independence, Wiranto is accused of allowing militias as well as his own troops to kill some 1500 East Timorese.

The court's statement yesterday said Wiranto was charged "with command responsibility for murder, deportation and persecution committed in the context of a widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population in East Timor.

"International law holds commanders criminally responsible if they knew or had reason to know of the commission of crimes against humanity by those under their effective control but failed to take reasonable and necessary measures to
prevent the crimes or punish the perpetrators."

An Interpol committee in East Timor will review the warrant and is likely to ask Interpol to arrest Wiranto if he leaves Indonesia. This process, however, is likely to take several months.

Wiranto yesterday met a leading human rights campaigner, Solahuddin Wahid, to finalise his agreement to be Wiranto's running mate in the July election.

Mr Wahid, the deputy head of Indonesia's Human Rights Commission - Komnas Ham - said he and Wiranto would today register with election authorities for the July poll.

He admitted yesterday that many Indonesian human rights figures were disappointed by his decision, but he had agreed to stand for as vice-president "to help Wiranto overcome his situation".

Mr Wahid, who is the younger brother of the former president Abdurrahman Wahid and a deputy chairman of the biggest Islamic organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, said Wiranto had assured him he could continue his human rights work if elected.

The vice-president would take on human rights, fighting bureaucracy and corruption, he said.

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