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SYDNEY - A witness at the Sydney inquest into the death of one of five Australian-based newsmen killed in East Timor in 1975 says he saw two of them alive after shooting had stopped in the Balibo town square.
Former Indonesian soldier Augusto Pereira told the inquest into the death of Australian Brian Peters that he saw Indonesian forces punching two of the journalists in a house on the town square.
Pereira said by the time he had arrived in the square around 5am on October 16, 1975, shooting between Indonesian forces and Fretilin troops had stopped.
Official reports claim that Peters and the four other journalists were killed in crossfire.
They were Greg Shackleton, former Wellington man Gary Cunningham, Tony Stewart and Malcolm Rennie.
Pereira told Glebe Coroner's Court he entered the town square around two hours after the frontline troops.
He said he believed the two men were killed by the troops he saw punching them.
"There was a lot of people [Indonesian soldiers] and they were the ones who killed them," he said.
He said he did not see the two journalists, whom he could not identify, again after they were punched.
He told the inquest he then saw the three other journalists lying dead in a pool of blood in another house on the square.
Their bodies were taken to a tree and burned.
- AAP
