Lindsay Murdoch – The Hollywood actor Anthony LaPaglia has called on the Northern Territory Government to hold a coronial inquiry into the assassination of Roger East, a largely forgotten Australian journalist he is portraying in the movie Balibo.

The Australian-born LaPaglia also called on the Rudd Government to send a forensic team to East Timor to recover the remains of East and the five Australian newsmen killed in Balibo in 1975.

In comments likely to anger the Indonesian Government, LaPaglia said he believed a shoebox supposedly containing the remains of the five newsmen that authorities took to Jakarta to be buried contained only dirt.

"Dig a couple of feet into the ground at Balibo and I reckon a good forensic team could find their remains," he told the Herald in an interview in Darwin, where the movie is being shot.

LaPaglia criticised NT authorities for deciding last year not to hold an inquiry into East's murder, partly on the grounds that he had lived in Darwin for only 10 months before his death aged 51 in December 1975.

"Roger was an Australian citizen – so why does it matter where he was from – the Northern Territory is still under Australian jurisdiction, right?"

LaPaglia is intrigued by East, a "seasoned" journalist who had covered wars and coups around the world. He agreed to take the role because "Roger's story is an important one to tell".

East ignored warnings and stayed on in the East Timorese capital, Dili, when Indonesian soldiers invaded, saying he would go into the hills with Fretilin soldiers. But witnesses saw soldiers from Indonesia's 502 Battalion march East to Dili's wharf where they saw him with his hands in the air shouting, "Not Fretilin – Australia."

East was cut down by automatic weapons fire. Nobody has been brought to justice for his killing.