Subject: Lusa - East Timor: Mario Soares Named a
Witness in Suit Against Suharto
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 01:13:07 -0000
From: "Paula Pinto" <paularoque@mail.telepac.pt>21 JAN 99 - 21:07 East
Timor: Mario Soares Named a Witness in Suit Against Suharto
Lisbon, Jan. 21 (Lusa) - Former Portuguese president Mario Soares will be named a
witness in a complaint charging former Indonesian president Suharto with crimes against
humanity. The complaint will be submitted to Portugal's chief prosecutor, Antonio Pereira,
head of the "Law and Justice" group, said Thursday. The group is the Portuguese
section of the Geneva-based International Jurists Commission. If approved the complaint
will underpin a formal request to extradite Suharto to Portugal. Suharto ordered the 1975
Indonesian occupation of East Timor, then a Portuguese overseas province. Humanitarian
organizations estimate that more than 200 thousand people died during the invasion and the
famine that followed. Pereira said that legally it was easier to extradite Suharto to
Portugal than Chilean general Augusto Pinochet to Spain. Indonesian crimes in East Timor
were committed in territory under Portuguese jurisdiction, he said. The United Nations
continues to recognize Portugal as the administering power in East Timor. Lusa
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