Francisco dos Santos Laku: 8 years for
murder
Judicial System Monitoring Programme, Dili
13/6/01
A former TNI soldier, Francisco dos Santos Laku, was today found guilty
of murder, and sentenced to 8 years imprisonment by the Special Panel for
Serious Crimes at the Dili District Court.
Laku was an intelligence
officer of the Indonesian army, based in Maliana. He admitted that he had
been part of a convoy driving rice to Atambua in West Timor on 7 September
1999. According to the indictment, he had at a militia roadblock handed
over a Timorese civilian and ordered the militia to kill the man. Laku
claimed that he had not ordered the murder.
The sentence is the second shortest handed down by the Special Panel so far.
The disposition was read out by Presiding Judge Sylver Ntukamazina from Burundi. The complete written judgment, including the court's findings of fact, statement of applicable law and reasons for the sentence, will be publicly read at the Dili District Court on 10 July 2001 at 09:00.