Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Three Indonesian soldiers and a police officer have won their appeals against convictions for gross human rights abuses in East Timor, in a decision that means all Indonesian security force personnel have now been cleared of the violence that resulted in the deaths of about 1600 people.
In the decision last month, made public yesterday, the notorious former East Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterres also had his 10-year jail sentence halved because the judges said the sentence was too severe.
The successful appeals by five of those originally convicted by an Indonesian human rights tribunal means the country's courts have upheld convictions of only two – both born in East Timor – of those charged over the bloodshed surrounding East Timor's vote for independence in 1999.
East Timor's former governor Abilio Soares recently became the only person to be jailed in Indonesia for the crimes when he began serving a three-year term.
This latest decision makes it more likely that Guterres, the other person facing a sentence, could join Soares, although he remains free while deciding on another appeal. The overturned convictions were those against Major-General Adam Damiri (three years), Lieutenant-Colonel Noer Muis, (five years) Lieutenant-Colonel Sujarwo (five years) and the former Dili police commander Hulman Goltom (three years).
It is unlikely that prosecutors will appeal against this decision, particularly in the case of Damiri, the most senior officer tried.
The general was indicted in July 2002 for crimes against humanity specifically in relation to massacres in Liquica (April 6, 1999), at Isaac Leandro's and Manuel Carrascalao's homes (April 17, 1999), at the Dili diocese office (September 5, 1999), at the resident of Bishop Carlos Belo and the Suai church (September 6, 1999).
At the conclusion of the case against Damiri last year the prosecutor urged the court to acquit him because of lack of evidence.
Critics have accused Indonesia of failing to find and punish those responsible for the bloodshed and destruction before and after East Timor's independence vote.
Tiago Sarmento, the deputy director of the Dili-based Judicial System Monitoring Program, called the decision "just one more example of how the Jakarta process has failed the Timorese people". He urged the United Nations to create a commission of experts to "ensure this mockery of international criminal law does not go unchecked".
Human rights bodies and several Western governments have already labelled Indonesia's prosecutions as a sham.
Indonesia was forced to set up its ad hoc tribunal under international pressure, but prosecutors only charged 18 people, and from the outset their cases were criticised as extremely weak.
The latest decision was read in open court late last month but its details only emerged yesterday after the senior judge told a newspaper the original convictions had been overturned because there was no proof.
A UN- backed team in East Timor has also conducted a series of prosecutions. Several senior Indonesian officers have been indicted, including the military commander at the time, the former general and recent presidential candidate Wiranto.