Jill Jolliffe – Pro-Indonesia militia leader Joao Tavares returned to East Timor yesterday for the first time since the violence of 1999.

Speaking after crossing the border at Batugade, the man considered by many East Timorese to be most responsible for militia crimes said he was prepared to stand trial.

Mr Tavares and other former militia leaders were in East Timor for talks mediated by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The delegation, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Tjuk Agus, Indonesian military commander in Atambua, West Timor, travelled in an armoured convoy. It was carefully searched by Brazilian peacekeepers at the border post.

Mr Tavares was formerly a powerful landowner and had a long involvement with the Indonesian military. He was with special forces in their attack on Balibo in October 1975 and is alleged to have looted the body of one of the five journalists killed there.

In 1998 he became overall commander of the militia forces that devastated East Timor a year later. He was also commander of the feared Halilintur militia group.

Mr Tavares has told the UN that if he is allowed to return he will bring the 50,000 refugees still in West Timor with him.

Although no arrest warrant has yet been issued for Mr Tavares, the possibility remains, and there has been no suggestion so far of an amnesty offer.

Asked if he regretted the violence of 1999 Mr Tavares said he had been "the first person to defend independence in East Timor" but had been opposed to sudden independence.

Questioned about the Balibo killings, Mr Tavares said the journalists had made a mistake in "being by the side of my enemy".

He said that if he returned he would give evidence to the UN inquiry into the Balibo deaths, which was now in progress.