The first major trial of atrocities committed in East Timor by Indonesian forces and proxy militias got underway in Dili Tuesday, with a three-judge panel hearing preliminary issues behind closed doors.

A court official told Lusa the first public hearing would be held Monday into the Lospalos killings, in which at least 13 people, including seven Catholic church workers, were slaughtered between April and September 1999.

Eleven men have been charged with the killings and other related crimes against humanity. Two of the defendants, including an Indonesian special forces officer, are being tried in absentia.

Preliminary hearings in the case began February 16. More than 600 pages of testimony from 78 witnesses have since been translated into Bahasa Indonesia, at the request of defense counsel.

The case involves 10 members of the East Timorese anti- independence militias Team Alfa and Jati Merah Putih, nine of whom are detained in Dili, the territorial capital. The remaining militiaman and the Indonesian military officer, Lt. Sayful Anwar of the Kopassus special forces, remain at large.

Three judges preside over the trial proceedings, two drawn from the international community and one East Timorese.

The suspects are accused of various crimes against humanity, including at least 13 murders, torture and the forced deportation of civilians. They are being judged under section 340 of the Indonesian penal code, which is still applicable in East Timor.

The case centers on crimes committed in the eastern Lospalos area, beginning on April 21, 1999 and ending the following Sept. 25, after the territory's pro-independence plebiscite, with the ambush and massacre of a group of Catholic church workers near the village of Verococo.