Military

DATE=03/07/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=INDONESIA / PEACEKEEPER (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-287256

BYLINE=PATRICIA NUNAN

DATELINE=JAKARTA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: An Indonesian court has sentenced the man who murdered a United Nations peacekeeper in East Timor to seven years in prison. But as V-O-A's Patricia Nunan reports, officials in the peacekeeper's home country are unhappy with the sentence.

TEXT: An Indonesian court said East Timorese militiaman Yacobus Bere is guilty of murdering Private Leonard Manning. The judge said that after killing the New Zealand soldier, Bere used a dagger to cut off one his ears.

New Zealand's ambassador to Indonesia, Chris Elder, is pleased with the guilty verdict, but not the sentence.

/// ELDER ACT ///

We thought that the 12 years that the prosecution was seeking would have been a sentence commensurate with the severity of the crime. We'll have to think a little more on the light sentence that's been handed down.

/// END ACT ///

New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark says her government will ask Indonesian prosecutors to appeal the case and press for a longer sentence.

Bere says he, too, will appeal the sentence. When his trial opened last year, he told reporters that he killed Private Manning to protect Indonesia's sovereignty.

Since breaking free of Indonesia in 1999, East Timor has been under U-N administration. Private Manning was one of the thousands of international peacekeepers sent to the territory as it prepares for full independence later this year.

Hundreds of people are believed to have died when anti-independence militias ravaged East Timor after it voted for independence.

Before hearing the verdict and sentence in the Manning case, the head of the U-N mission in East Timor, Sergio de Mello, said the case shows that Jakarta wants justice.

/// DE MELLO ACT ///

I had requested the extradition of a suspect in the murder of a U-N soldier in late July 2000. The reply that I had received from the Indonesian government was that Indonesian government would not agree to the extradition of that individual, because that individual would be tried in Indonesia. Which indeed has happened. So, what matters is justice, not where it takes place.

/// END ACT ///

Three other militiamen are also on trial for Private Manning's murder. Verdicts in their case should come later this month. (Signed)

NEB/HK/PN/HB/KPD/RH