Lindsay Murdoch – Eurico Guterres looks a beaten man. Gone are his thug bodyguards and the copy-cat red beret uniform of Indonesia's elite Kopassus forces. Gone also are his bravado and threats to kill.
Instead, the militia leader – who ordered mass murders and the destruction of East Timor – is living under an assumed name in a seedy hotel in north Jakarta.
"I don't feel I am guilty of anything," he says. "It's possible to question me but I cannot take responsibility because what happened was the result of political crimes."
Three months after carrying out his threat to turn East Timor into a wasteland if Timorese voted to reject Jakarta's rule, Guterres is beginning to feel abandoned by Indonesia and hints that he might one day name names in Indonesia's armed forces.
"The Indonesian military is also responsible because at that time they were trusted to secure East Timor," he says. "Now I cannot say who is exactly responsible ... but I will say it in the end when all of the politics are under investigation. Now I don't want to say a word." The state-funded Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission has summoned Guterres, 27, to question him about East Timor atrocities.
Under the laws of most countries Guterres, a former street gang leader in the East Timorese capital, Dili, would be facing charges of mass murder.
In one incident alone, which has been researched by international human rights groups, Guterres publicly ordered his men to "capture and kill if necessary" family members of the independence leader, Mr Manuel Carrascalao. Within an hour of the order, 100 of Guterres's militia stormed Mr Carrascalao's house and killed 12 people, including his 16-year-old adopted son.
The Indonesian military recruited and trained Guterres, who commanded a paramilitary group called Aitarak, or Thorn, which was given the responsibility for security in Dili and often joined other militia groups in attacks on independence supporters outside the city.
Guterres says he has 53,000 supporters living in refugee camps in Indonesian-ruled West Timor who cannot return to East Timor because they would be attacked.
"I will stay in Indonesia because I'm Indonesian," he says. "But if Indonesia does not want the pro-integration side to remain in Indonesia, maybe we will ask for political asylum in another country because it's impossible for us to go back to East Timor, even though it is our homeland." Guterres confirmed an announcement on Monday by another militia leader, Joao da Silva Tavares, that militia forces in West Timor would be disbanded.
Asked about repeated threats he had made to attack an Australian-led international force in East Timor, Guterres says: "We have no intention to do that."