Indonesian justice inadequate, says Goff

3.00pm

The Government today expressed concern about "the adequacy of the processes and the verdicts" delivered by Indonesia's Human Rights Tribunals for East Timor.

The court, sitting in Jakarta, yesterday found four mid-ranking soldiers and a former police chief not guilty of crimes against humanity over a church massacre in East Timor in 1999.

Prosecutors had demanded sentences of around 10 years for each of the men.

Some 27 East Timorese, including three priests, were killed in the massacre at the Ave Maria church in the border township of Suai about a week after the territory voted to break from Indonesian rule.

Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff said people had to be held to account for crimes against humanity committed in East Timor.

"The international community will have no confidence in the outcomes of these tribunal hearings when those who were told to commit crimes and those who were responsible for giving the orders for those crimes are not properly punished," he said in a statement.

"Earlier this week former governor of East Timor Abilio Soares was found guilty of committing crimes against humanity and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

"This was notwithstanding the fact that the minimum sentence in Indonesia's human rights law for this crime is 10 years."

Mr Goff said New Zealand expected the trials to be conducted in accordance with international standards of justice, and that those found guilty received sentences commensurate with the seriousness of their crimes.

"In the three cases heard so far the prosecutor failed to present all relevant evidence and in my view has not met accepted international standards. The judges were not in possession of the full facts when they made their decision," he said.

"It is essential for these human rights trials to have meaning and relevance, that justice is not merely paid lip-service, but that it is actually delivered."

Yesterday's verdict was the third handed down for 18 suspects charged over the violence in East Timor.

- NZPA, REUTERS

Feature: Indonesia and East Timor

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