Trudy Harris, Mark Dodd – East Timor president Xanana Gusmao yesterday defended a lucrative weapons deal between his Government and the Prime Minister's brother.

A spokesman for Mr Gusmao rejected opposition concerns the deal lacked transparency, saying a public tendering process existed for procurements such as sophisticated military equipment.

However, the spokesman said he did not know the details of the tendering process for the weapons deal revealed in The Australian.

The deal involves granting Dr Mari Alkatiri's younger brother a monopoly to sell weapons to the East Timor Government with a licence to broker sophisticated military equipment including tanks, patrol boats and attack helicopters.

"I don't think the brother is an issue. There are transparency processes in place. If the bidders have the right expertise then they can compete.

And it's up to the procurement department to respond to whether it was the best bid or not," the spokesman said in Sydney where Mr Gumsao held meetings with Alexander Downer.

"I understand that the opposition has some concerns about this but the opposition should debate this in the parliament... where they can raise legitimate issues," the spokesman, Agio Pereira, said.

He also rejected concerns about the role of the paramilitary police in East Timor that will use the weapons. He said the police units had always used sophisticated guns – such as high-powered military assault weapons – for maintaining law and order.

"Our constitution is very clear, the police deal only with law and order matters. And only the military deal with external attacks," he said.

In addition to 2700 Glock 9mm service pistols for ordinary police, other weapons recently obtained include Steyr assault rifles, F2000 machine guns, MP5 A3 machine guns, and Heckler and Koch 33 assault rifles.

Senior East Timorese government officials who asked not to be named said yesterday there was little transparency involved in weapons purchases.