E. Timorese may get 12-year prison term for killing peacekeeper
Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
State prosecutors demanded on Thursday a 12-year jail term for an East
Timorese pro-integration militiaman for the alleged killing of a New Zealand
peacekeeper two years ago.
Chief prosecutor Muhammad Syafei told the Central Jakarta District Court
that
defendant Yacobus Bere, 37, killed Pvt. Leonard William Manning, 24, while
the victim was serving with the international peacekeeping force in East
Timor on July 24, 2000.
The prosecutors said the defendant was guilty of manslaughter, which
carries
a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail.
They were unable to charge Bere with murder, which carries a maximum
penalty
of death or life imprisonment, because testimony from witnesses, including
several of Manning's colleagues, failed to support it.
Clad in a red-and-white military-type uniform, Bere looked calm during
the
hearing, which was presided over by Judge I Nengah Suriada.
"I wouldn't accept the sentence demand, even if prosecutors asked
for only
one year's imprisonment. I didn't carry it out (the killing) for the sake
of
myself or my family, but for the red-and-white," he told reporters
after the
hearing, referring to the colors of the national flag.
The court will resume on Feb. 25 to hear the defendant's plea.
Manning was a member of a UN force dispatched to East Timor to restore
order
after the independence vote in September 1999.
Bere and five other militiamen, who were herding cattle, shot Manning
while
the force tracked militiamen in a border area near Suai, East Timor,
according to the indictment.
After shooting the victim, the defendant took a sword that was being
brandished by one of his accomplices and approached the victim to ensure
that
he was dead.
The autopsy report revealed Manning was shot twice, his ears severed
and his
throat slashed.
Bere surrendered to Kupang Police on Jan. 15 after a six-month police
manhunt. He was then flown to Jakarta for the trial.
Three other militiamen are still being tried at the Central Jakarta District
Court in the same case.
Six militiamen were convicted last year for the murder of three UN aid
workers in West Timor. They were sentenced to 10 months to 20 months in
jail
at the same court.
The high court, however, increased their sentence to five years to seven
years imprisonment after the international community and the UN expressed
their disappointment over the light sentence.
Top officials of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East
Timor
(UNTAET) voiced dissatisfaction with Indonesia on Thursday for its slow
progress in establishing an ad hoc tribunal to address the human rights
violations committed in East Timor in 1999.
The delegation visited the country to ensure that the prosecution of
the
suspects here can proceed at the same pace of trials involving similar
cases
now underway in East Timor, said the acting representative of the UNTAET
secretary-general, Dennis McNamara.
"We have issued 33 indictments in the first trial, and the second
trial has
just started," he said.
"We need to see cooperation, because progress here is too slow,"
he told
reporters after meeting with National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas
HAM)
chairman Djoko Sugianto.
McNamara said that it was important for Indonesia to convince the
international community of the sincerity of its efforts to conduct the
tribunal; he added that the UN Human Rights Commission would bring up
the
Indonesian case during its next meeting in Geneva on March.
The delegation planned to meet the Minister of Justice and Human Rights
Yusril Ihza Mahendra and Attorney General M.A. Rahman on Friday to discuss
further cooperation based on a Memorandum of Understanding signed in April
2000 to allow an exchange of witnesses during trials.