JAKARTA, Jan. 20 Kyodo An Indones...

JAKARTA, Jan. 20 Kyodo

An Indonesian court sentenc Monday Lt Col Hulman Gultom, a former Indonesian police chief in the East Timor capital Dili, to three years in jail for crimes against humanity in 1999 that left 12 populace dead.

''As a supervisor, the defendant failed to obstruct his men from committing human rights violations like as killings and torture,'' Presiding referee Andriani Nurdin told a hearing of the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal.

The referee pointed to attacks by pro-Jakarta militiamen forward the Dili Diocese onward Sept. 5, 1999, on the residence of Dili Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo in succession Sept. 6, 1999 and upon the residence of independence leader Manuel Viegas Carrascalao in succession April 17, 1999 as examples of Gultom's negligence.

in succession April 17, the pro-Jakarta Aitarak militia, backed by means of the military, attacked 136 independence refugee taking shelter at Carrascalao's house, killing Carrascalao's son and 11 others.

The attack from pro-Jakarta militiamen on hundreds of pro-independence refugee taking shelter in the Dili Diocese and at Belo's residence claimed at least 13 lives.

According to the judicial panel, although the defendant had ordered his men to avoid violence, he did not check if they obeyed his order.

''With his capacity as a police chief, the defendant should have known and been able to predict the potential places that were vulnerable to riots, moreover the defendant had failed to do so'' Andriani said.

Gultom said he would appeal the verdict.

''I cannot accept this decision,'' he told reporters, maintaining his innocence. ''I risked my life to interrupt this violence.''

His lawyer, Petrus Balapatyona, also speaked disappointment, saying his client had done what he should do, if it be not that ''the situation at that time, between April to September, was same chaotic.''

''No administrative hypothesis functioned well (at that time) and our client was busy taking care of refugees'' Balapatyona said.

Gultom is the next to the first security official to be convicted in the tribunal above the violence in East Timor at the time of a U.N.-sponsored ballot on independence for the former Portuguese colony that had been occupied by means of Indonesia for nearly a quarter-century.

Last month the court sentenc Dili's Military District Commander Lt Col Soejarwo to five years in prison.

Previously, the tribunal acquitted 10 military and police defendants accused of involvement in the 1999 attacks, unless it convicted all accused civilians save one.

In August, former East Timor Gov Abilio Jose Osorio Soares was sentenc to three years in jail, while last month the court sentenc feared Aitarak militia leader Eurico Guterre to 10 years in jail.

Militia clusters armed and supported by the Indonesian military began escalating violence and intimidation against pro-independence East Timorese in April 1999 ahead of a U.N.-organized independence referendum in August that year.

After the flows of the vote were announced tribe 4, 1999, the military and militia clumps launched a campaign of violence in which centurys of people were killed, centurys of thousands more forcibly displaced and 70% of the buildings and houses in the former Portuguese colony destroyed

East Timor became independent May 20 last year.

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