Indonesian's ex-military chief Wiranto has formally announced his presidential candidacy whilst dismissing an arrest warrant issued against him by an East Timor judge as "character assassination." "There are several pieces of information that are behind these charges, there clearly is an involvement of political activities in this country," Wiranto told reporters.

The warrant issued Monday accuses him of crimes against humanity for failing to prevent atrocities by army-backed militias against independence supporters in East Timor, then Indonesian territory, in 1999.

"There are always manoeuvres inside the country and abroad to take steps with one single aim, character assassination," Wiranto told reporters, dismissing the accusation as "very normal" in politics. He did not say who he thought was behind the warrant but hinted that it came from among his rivals in the July 5 presidential elections.

Wiranto said candidates should be offering solutions to the country's problems. "What I worry, what is developing instead, is that we mutually undermine ourselves, mutually kill ourselves and mutually destroy ourselves using ways that are not normal," he said.

Wiranto told a press conference he would leave the warrant to the Indonesian and East Timor governments to settle "in a respectful way." The Indonesian government has said it would ignore the warrant, from a UN-backed court. The Dili government said it would work with the ex-general if he won the election.

East Timor's prosecutor general on Tuesday filed a court motion for a "revision" of the case against Wiranto. "I regret that arrest warrant," the prosecutor general, Longuinhos Monteiro, told a press conference in Dili.

Wiranto is the candidate for the Golkar party which won the April 5 parliamentary poll.

He was Jakarta's military chief when the militiamen, who were organised and equipped by the Indonesian army, waged their murderous campaign in East Timor.

Some 1,400 people were killed before and after East Timorese voted in August 1999 for independence. About 200,000 people were deported to Indonesian West Timor and 70 percent of all buildings in the territory were destroyed. East Timor became independent in May 2002.

Wiranto said an investigation by Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission and attorney general had already cleared him of rights violations.

He said he was prepared to accept punishment if a single witness could be found to testify that he had ordered abuses. "But the reality is that we have never done that or allowed that to happen." Wiranto's vice presidential candidate is Solahuddin Wahid, a deputy chairman of Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).

Solahuddin, a deputy chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights, has said he could understand people's worries about Wiranto's rights records.

But there were also "millions of NU members who want me to move forward and accompany Wiranto," he said.

Golkar party leader Akbar Tanjung said he expected the candidates would soon get formal endorsement from NU leaders and from leaders of the NU-linked National Awakening Party (PKB).

Ex-president Abdurrahman Wahid, who is Solahuddin's elder brother and who co-founded PKB, sat between his brother and Wiranto at the ceremony at which he formally announced his candidacy for the elections.

The near-blind elder Wahid, who has suffered several strokes, refuses to drop out of the presidential race despite a ruling that candidates must be in good health.

But analysts say they expect him to be disqualified, leaving the PKB free to support Golkar's candidates.