Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Former Information Minister Yunus Yosfiah has been accused of murdering five Western journalists in East Timor in 1975 by a new witness who gave evidence on an Australian television show.

The accusations by Mr Tomas Goncalves – a former East Timorese partisan soldier, and the only known witness to the event – contradict Indonesian and Australian government reports which said Timorese soldiers accidentally killed the journalists in cross-fighting. The show was aired on Australia's Dateline programme on Wednesday.

Mr Goncalves, who headed the Timorese-trained forces accompanying Indonesian soldiers as they invaded East Timor from West Timor, said the five journalists had tried to surrender but were shot in cold blood.

"They came out, three at the back, one at the front, with their hands up. Their intention in coming out [of the house] was to survive. They thought they would get protection. Yunus had other ideas, his reaction was to fire straight away. He started first ... he started shooting and then everyone joined in. You know it's war and they all wanted promotion," Mr Goncalves said on the programme.

He claimed Mr Yunus had to shoot the five journalists – two Australian, one New Zealander and two British, all working for Australian television stations – "so they would not publicise what they saw to the outside world".

Mr Yunus has previously denied being at Balibo when the journalists were killed and this week refused to respond to the allegations made by Mr Goncalves.

The five journalists were in the border town of Balibo, then part of Portuguese Timor, to report on whether it was true that Indonesia was planning to invade East Timor and had launched sorties into the province.

With already strained relations between Australia and Indonesia, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said his government would not lodge a complaint or propose a further inquiry. "There will be no judicial inquiry, we've already had two. At the moment we've done all that we can," he said.

Commentators, such as a former Australian consul to East Timor, Mr James Dunne, say East Timor's fate may have been significantly different if the journalists had survived to report on the Indonesian invasion, and there had been Western opposition to Indonesia's plans.

Despite quite good intelligence material to the contrary, the Australian, American and British governments claimed no knowledge of Indonesia having sent troops into East Timor in preparation for their invasion.

Ms Shirley Shackleton, widow of one of the Australian journalists, called on the government to hold a full judicial inquiry into the journalists' deaths based on new evidence.