Matthew Moore – The man who ran the United Nations mission that oversaw East Timor's referendum has branded the trials of alleged Indonesian war criminals a complete failure and said it was time for the UN to set up its own tribunal to investigate atrocities before and after the 1999 vote.

Mr Ian Martin, the former head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), called on the international community to act even though Indonesia's special human rights court has decided only three of 18 matters before it.

He said the court's decision on Thursday to acquit four Indonesian army officers and a policeman of one of the worst massacres – the slaughter of between 27 and 200 people in a church in the hill town of Suai – demonstrated the whole process established by the Indonesian Government was a failure.

"The acquittals ... are particularly disturbing because they are the biggest single mass killing, and if anything could have been prosecuted it would have been them ... The evidence was very clear and very available." He said that in 1999 the then US secretary of state, Madeline Albright, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, agreed "there should be an international tribunal if Indonesia proved incapable of having proper trials". That point had now been reached, he said.

"I think the issue is now right back on the agenda as to how the international community will fulfil its commitments." Mr Martin said the cases mounted by the prosecution were hopelessly inadequate.