Chris McCall – Abilio Soares' light sentence finally proves that Indonesia's human rights trials related to East Timor are just a ploy to satisfy the international community, a top Indonesian rights activist said yesterday.

Munarman described the trials as "camouflage" and said the aim was merely to put a stop to international pressure on the East Timor issue. Comparing the trials to theatre, Mr Munarman said they had clearly been designed to ensure that the accused got off lightly.

However, he said the questionable sentence handed down to the former governor posed other questions for the future of Indonesia's legal system.

Although Soares was only jailed for three years, the 2000 law on human rights trials specifies a minimum sentence of 10 years for such cases.

"By giving a sentence which is under 10 years, this is going to damage the Indonesian legal system," said Mr Munarman, head of the civil rights division at the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation. "We would have been better if from the start the court had freed him. It was weakness by the prosecution. From the start this court was not prepared seriously."

The judges justified their ruling on the grounds that they were not restricted purely to considering the actual texts of laws. They gave a long recitation of precedents from various international covenants on human rights to justify their action.

However, Mr Munarman said such arguments were only admissible when considering the validity of evidence, not in determining a verdict and sentence.

The evidence presented in court was overwhelmingly from the pro-autonomy side. Arrangements were never properly put in place, Mr Munarman said, for witnesses for the pro-independence side to be brought from East Timor.

"How to bring the witnesses was never arranged. It was designed so that they could not attend, so the evidence would be less heavy against the accused," he said.

From the start the specially appointed judges have been criticised as inexperienced, while international critics have seen a behind-the-scenes plot to save figures higher up in the chain of command and rescue Indonesia's international image.