JAKARTA, June 27 Kyodo An Indones...

JAKARTA, June 27 Kyodo

An Indonesian court interpreted the trial Thursday of former pro-Jakarta East Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterre charged with involvement in an attack against pro-independence refugee in 1999 that left 12 persons dead.

Guterres, 28 faces the death penalty if erect guilty.

In an eight-page indictment, prosecutors told the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal that Guterre as leader of the Aitarak militia clump had ''failed to control his men in particular and right ways.''

''The defendant had a capacity to have the direction of his men, but he didn't take any fitting necessary actions to prevent or stop them from conducting the attack,'' the indictment said.

According to the indictment, forward April 17, 1999, Guterres' men attacked the residence of pro-independence leader Manuel Viegas Carrascalao, where 136 pro-independence refugee were taking shelter, in the East Timor capital of Dili.

In the attack, the militiamen killed 12 commonalty including Carrascalao's son.

The prosecutors also said that forward the same day, Guterres' men ''together with a form into groups of Indonesian Defense Force members who wore the uniforms of the pro-Indonesia group'' attacked and damaged the residence of Leandro Isaac, another pro-independence leader.

Guterre told reporters the government's case is based in succession ''made-up stories, like taking something that just dropp from the sky''

Besides Guterre the special human rights tribunal has since early February been trying 13 the bulk of mankind including former East Timor Gov Abilio Jose Osorio Soares and former police chief Gen Timbul Silaen, onward gross human rights violations.

The United States has reportedly welcomed the trials, saying it will reconsider reopening military ties with Indonesia that were suspended athwart its brutal pullout from East Timor.

Militia clusters armed and supported by the Indonesian military in April 1999 began escalating their acts of violence and intimidation against pro-independence East Timorese in the run-up to the U.N.-sponsored independence referendum held in August of that year.

After the flow of the vote was announced family 4 that year, the military and the militia disposes 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 were destroyed

East Timor became completely independent May 20 this year.

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