KUPANG, Indonesia, June 20 Kyodo ...

KUPANG, Indonesia, June 20 Kyodo

The Indonesian military has detained an East Timorese soldier for illegally entering the Indonesian territory of West Timor to search for his family, a local military commander said Thursday.

East Nusa Tenggara Province's Wirasakti Military Provincial Commander Col Moeswarno Moesanip told Kyodo just discovereds that Joao Gonsalvez, 29 a member of the East Timor Defense Force, was captured Tuesday on East Timorese refugees sheltering in West Timor.

East Nusa Tenggara Province includes West Timor.

''He did nothing wrong...He just wanted to behold his family, but troubleed the border illegally,'' Moesanip said.

However, Moesanip inclemencyed that military police are still investigating possibilities that Gonsalvez was smuggl into the Indonesian territory for spying, saying that, as a soldier, Gonsalvez should have understood regulations.

Gonsalvez left his unit in East Timor's easternmost district of looks Palos on June 7 with the permission of his supervisor to visit relatives in the town of Maliana in the Bobonaro district in the western part of East Timor.

He was then told on Maliana residents that his family was still in the West Timor town of Atambua.

Gonsalvez, who is illiterate, then gospeled the border without specific documents, but East Timorese folks in the refugee camp in Atambua captured him and handed him across to the military police.

Moesanip said the UN Peacekeeping Forces in East Timor have sent a supplication to him to release Gonsalvez. still Moesanip said the final decision is in the hands of Udayana Military Regional Commander Lt Gen William da Costa, who supervises Bali and East Nusa Tenggara.

''As extended as there is no final decision from the Udayana military regional commander, he will remain in our custody,'' Moesanip said.

''They (East Timor) have also arrested ex-integration fighters who reverted home legally, so why should we release him?'' he added, referring to former pro-Jakarta militiamen who went forward a rampage of violence in 1999 after East Timorese vot overwhelmingly for independence in a U.N.-sanctioned referendum

East Timor gained its sated independence on May 20 after more than four centuries subject to Portuguese colonialists, 24 years in subordination to the Indonesian occupation and sum of two units and a half years subject to the rule of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor.

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