A court in East Timor jailed a former pro-Jakarta militiaman for eight years and eight months for crimes against humanity during the territory's bloody breakaway from Indonesia in 1999.

Joao Sarmento, who pleaded guilty, was convicted of two counts of murder and of forcibly deporting villagers in the Same area of Manufahi district between April and September 1999, the country's Serious Crimes Unit said in a statement.

Sarmento murdered two people in a coordinated militia attack on a village in April that year and murdered another man in September who refused to board a truck to be transported to Indonesian West Timor. He was also guilty of forcibly moving villagers from Same to West Timor in "planned operations" in September 1999, the statement said.

Last month two other former members of the same Tim Sarasat Ablai militia were jailed for 12 and eight years respectively.

The East Timorese militias, backed by the Indonesian military, waged a savage intimidation campaign before East Timorese voted in August 1999 to split from Jakarta, and a revenge campaign afterwards. An estimated 1,000 people were killed and whole towns were burnt to the ground. Tens of thousands of East Timorese either fled or were forced by militiamen across the border into West Timor as international peacekeeping troops moved in to halt the violence.

East Timor's Special Panel for Serious Crimes has now convicted 35 people over the 1999 violence. United Nations-funded prosecutors have charged more than 300 people, including top-ranking Indonesian military officers. Of those indicted, 221 remain at large in Indonesia, which refuses to hand anyone over for trial.

Indonesia's own rights court for offenders in East Timor has been described by international rights groups as a sham, with most defendants cleared or given light jail terms.