East Timor: Indonesia Agrees to Cooperate on Atrocity Inquries - UNTAET 3 Nov-12:55

Indonesia's attorney general, Marzuki Darusman, agreed this week to a series of East Timorese requests for cooperation in investigations into human rights abuses and atrocities committed last year, a UN administration official said Friday in Dili.

Peter Biro told Lusa that the agreements were reached in talks held between Darusman and Dili's prosecutor for special crimes, Mohamed Chande Othman, in Jakarta earlier in the week.

Among other accepted requests, Jakarta had agreed to give Dili investigators access to 39 people suspected of involvement in a series of massacres committed last year in East Timor, including the slaughters at Liquiça, Suai and the Dili home of independence activist Manuel Carrascalao.

Darusman also agreed, Biro said, to set up a joint investigative team to exhume at least 10 bodies believed buried along the Oe Cusse enclave border, part of a militia massacre of about 70 men and youths from two villages.

Agreement was also reached for Indonesia to "share" evidence requested by the UN administration that could be used in future atrocity trials in East Timor.

Bira said it was still not clear when East Timorese investigators would travel to Indonesia to carry out their inquiries, especially in the case of militia boss Eurico Guterres, who has been detained in Jakarta.

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