Jakarta – A senior UN refugee official rapped Indonesian authorities Monday for failing to properly punish the "cold-blooded" killers of three of its staff.

But Soren Jessen-Petersen, Assistant United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said Jakarta, in a "fundamental policy change," now clearly wants the return of an estimated 80,000 East Timorese refugees from Indonesian West Timor.

Jessen-Petersen, speaking at the end of an eight-day visit to Jakarta and West and East Timor, said he was "very disturbed and distressed" that the high court had confirmed "ridiculously low sentences" on two men convicted in connection with the murders.

In September 2000 a mob of frenzied East Timorese militiamen stoned, stabbed and beat to death the three unarmed UNHCR workers – an American, a Croatian and an Ethiopian – in the border town of Atambua in Indonesian West Timor. Their bodies were set on fire.

A Jakarta court in May found six men not guilty of their murder and instead convicted them of inciting mob violence. It sentenced them to jail terms of between 10 and 20 months.

Jessen-Petersen told a press conference he raised the case of "cold-blooded murder" with the attorney-general's office. "I was very disturbed by what I heard. The concerted impression we got was there was very little he could do [about the confirmation of sentence]. We don't agree with that. We believe it is the responsibility of the Indonesian authorities to take this all the way, to see that justice is done," Jessen-Petersen said.

"The impression we got from that meeting is that is not happening ... among many, many very encouraging meetings with the Indonesian authorities, there was [that] one disturbing meeting."