An Indonesian court has jailed a militiaman for six years for the brutal murder of a New Zealand peacekeeping soldier in East Timor in 2000.

Jacobus Bere was found guilty of murdering Private Leonard William Manning, 24, near Suai in East Timor on July 24, 2000.

Bere, 37, was convicted of murder and not the more serious charge of premeditated murder because he did not know Manning at the time of the killing, chief judge Nengah Suryade announced at Central Jakarta district court.

Three other defendants – Fabianus Ulu, Yohanes Timo and Gabriel Halenoni – will appear in court on March 14 for verdicts. They are accused of involvement in the murder.

Prosecutors had sought a 12-year jail sentence for Bere and 10 years for the other three after deciding that the killing was not premeditated.

The four defendants, along with two other men still on the run, shot Manning dead in the rugged border area near Indonesian West Timor, the trial was told earlier.

The six men were said to have crossed into East Timor to look for a stray cow when they encountered the United Nations peacekeeping patrol, which was tracking militia fighters in the area.

Prosecutors have said Bere made sure the victim was dead by cutting his throat with a machete and then slashing his ears off. The men also took his firearm.

Pro-Jakarta East Timorese militias, backed by elements of the Indonesian army, launched a campaign of murder and destruction after East Timorese voted in August 1999 for independence from Indonesia.

The six people in Manning's case were among militia members who fled to West Timor shortly after the arrival of international peacekeeping forces in East Timor in September 1999. Bere was arrested in West Timor and flown to Jakarta last October.'