Indonesian military again packs court as Timor trial resumes
Members of the powerful military packed Indonesia's new human rights
court
for the third consecutive week as the trial resumed of five officers accused
of gross rights violations in East Timor in 1999.
Outside, about 100 supporters of notorious pro-Jakarta militia chief
Eurico
Guterres shouted support for the actions of the Indonesian military and
police in East Timor during the militia bloodshed in the territory that
year.
As some 30 officers staged what the military calls a show of support
for the
accused, prosecutors sought to rebut defence arguments that the trial
is
illegal and unconstitutional.
The four middle-ranking army officers and one police officer are accused
of
failing to prevent a massacre of civilians in a church at Suai in Covalima
district on September 6, 1999. Some 27 people were killed, including 10
women
and three Catholic priests.
In the dock are Colonel Herman Sedyono, former Covalima district chief;
Colonel Lilik Kushardianto, the former district military commander in
Covalima; Major Ahmad Syamsuddin, head of the general staff of the Covalima
military command; and Captain Sugito, former Suai town military commander.
Also on trial is Adjunct Senior Commissioner Gatot Subiyaktoro, former
Covalima district police chief.
A total of 18 military, police, militia and civilian officials including
Guterres are due eventually to face trial in the rights court over the
army-backed attacks by pro-Jakarta militias against independence supporters
in April and September 1999.
A statement, read out in turn by prosecutors in response to last week's
defence arguments, said the rights court has "the authority to hear
and try
the case of Herman Sedyono and his colleagues."
The defence lawyers said last week that some of the charges against the
five
were criminal charges and not gross violations of human rights.
They said the court had no jurisdiction over East Timor and was set up
through a flawed regulation that violates the constitution.
But prosecutors said Sedyono and the four defendants had clearly carried
out
"gross human rights violations -- which is an extraordinary crime
whose
nature and regulations are different to that of an ordinary crime."
They said the legal grounds for the court to prosecute the case came
from a
presidential decree issued by Megawati Sukarnoputri in 2001.
The defendants face sentences ranging from 10 years in prison to death
if
convicted.
Militiamen organised by senior Jakarta officials waged a campaign of
intimidation before East Timor's August 1999 vote to split from Indonesia,
and a "scorched earth" revenge campaign afterwards.
They killed hundreds of people, torched towns and forced more than 250,000
people into Indonesian-ruled West Timor after the vote.
Jakarta has come under strong international pressure to punish the atrocities
but international rights groups are sceptical that the rights court will
deliver justice.