Vaudine England – The "disappearance" of activists, whether temporary or permanent, is a political instrument common to past and present governments, a victim who was tortured said yesterday.

Raharjo Waluyo Jati was a victim of a "disappearance" a year ago at the hands of the Indonesian armed forces in Jakarta. At a press conference held at Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents' Club, Mr Jati described the trial of 11 Special Forces (Kopassus) troops held responsible for recent kidnappings as a farce and "very ridiculous". "Kidnapping has been happening since at least the 1997 election, and the wide geographical spread of the victims shows it is the military who is doing it," he said.

"But the highest-ranking officer on trial was only a major." Mr Jati said the trial failed to take into account the political motives behind the abduction and torture of activists, and failed to target the leader of the Special Forces at the time, Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto, a son-in-law of former preside nt Suharto.

"We believe the motivating force for the kidnappings was Prabowo, but the trial ignored the Prabowo factor," he said. General Prabowo was given an honourable discharge in the wake of the kidnappings last year and retains significant influence in the military. The 11 junior soldiers convicted in the recent trial received sentences of up to 22 months for the abductions, b ut no one was charged with torture.

Mr Jati was captured early last year, and his account of his treatment is a harrowing insight into the methods of intimidation used by the armed forces against people advocating change.

Over a six-week period, he was repeatedly beaten, burned with cigarettes, deprived of food and sleep, and given electric shocks.

He was stripped and forced to lie on blocks of ice. He was nearly strangled by rope hanging from the ceiling as masked soldiers interrogated him.

Mr Jati noted that Mr Suharto's rise to power in the mid-1960s was marked by the disappearance and murder of thousands of people. "At the end of the Suharto regime, 23 students were reported to have disappeared, and at least six people disappeared during the new government of [President Bacharuddin] Habibie," he said.

Only nine of the activists kidnapped in the last months of the Suharto regime have reappeared. One was found dead, 13 are still missing.