JSMP News

SERIOUS CRIMES UNIT INFORMATION RELEASE

8 December 2003

SCU: INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION

SPECIAL PANEL TRIAL ENDS WITH AN EAST TIMORESE TNI SOLDIER BEING ACQUITTED OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

At 11.00 on 8 December 2003, Judges at the Special Panels for Serious Crimes acquitted Paulino de Jesus of murder and attempted murder in Bobonaro district in September 1999. This is the first acquittal of a
defendant at the Special Panels for Serious Crimes since trials began in January 2001 in Timor Leste.

The Special Panel consisting of two International Judges and one East Timorese judge decided by a 2-1 majority to acquit Paulino de Jesus of one count of murder as a Crime against Humanity and one count of attempted
murder as a Crime against Humanity.

Paulino de Jesus, was serving as an East Timorese soldier in the Indonesian military (TNI) in Bobonaro district in 1999. He had been accused of the direct perpetration of one murder and assisting in an attempted murder in
Lourba village on 10 September 1999.

Paulino de Jesus was arrested in May 2002 in Lourba village in Bobonaro district after he had entered Timor Leste from West Timor using an Indonesian passport. Since his arrest he has been held in detention in
Timor Leste. Following the acquittal, Paulino de Jesus will be released from detention in Timor Leste.

Acquittals at the Special Panels can be appealed. According to Regulation UNTAET 2000/320, the Office of the Deputy Prosecutor General for Serious Crimes has ten days to file a notice of appeal.

The decision in the Paulino de Jesus case is the first acquittal at the Special Panels for Serious Crimes since trials began in January 2001. A total of 40 defendants have so far been convicted of Crimes against
Humanity and serious crimes during trials at the Special Panels in Timor Leste.

To date, two former East Timorese TNI soldiers have been convicted in trials at the Special Panels In April 2001, an East Timorese TNI Sergeant was found guilty and sentenced to 8 years imprisonment for the murder of an
independence supporter in Balibo subdistrict on 7 September 1999. Inn September 2002, an East Timorese TNI member was found guilty and sentenced to 4 years imprisonment for the rape of a woman in Dili on 12 September
1999.

The verdict in the trial of a fourth East Timorese TNI Sergeant who is accused of Crimes against Humanity in the Hera area of Dili in September 1999 is scheduled for 10 December 2003 at the Special Panels for Serious
Crimes.

Since 2000, the Serious Crimes Unit has indicted a total of 369 persons with 281 of those accused presently outside the jurisdiction of Timor Leste including 37 Indonesian TNI Military Commanders and Officers and 60 East
Timorese TNI Officers and soldiers.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT SCU CONTACT scu@un.org