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East Timor: Ex-militiamen said infiltrating
home for banditry - military
source
Dili,
Jan. 21 (Lusa) - Former pro-Indonesian militiamen are gradually
slipping back into East Timor and resorting to banditry, a military
source in Dili told Lusa Friday.
The
officer said the latest evidence of the infiltration from Indonesia
West Timor came from an ex-militiaman captured by police after a
firefight Tuesday.
According
to the officer, the captive, Daniel Mendes, told interrogators he
was part of a six-man gang that had crossed the border planning
to assault vehicles and rob villages to survive.
Mendes,
a former member of the anti-independence Halilintar militia from
the western Ermera area, said he entered East Timor last Sunday
to join an armed group that crossed the border in November.
The
firefight with the gang and Mendes' subsequent capture by police
was the first concrete evidence of activities by former militiamen
in East Timor in more than one year.
The
military source told Lusa it was likely that other ex- militiamen
would seek to return to home areas as bandits, "as a matter
of survival, not politics".
EL/SAS.
Lusa
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