Ex-militiaman gets 20-year sentence for 3 murders

Lusa 11.9.2002

A Dili court has sentenced a Timorese man who belonged to a pro-Indonesian militia to twenty years imprisonment for three murders that he committed in 1999, it was announced Wednesday.

The Special Panel for Serious Crimes of the Dili District Court found 32-year-old Armando dos Santos guilty this week of murdering a pro-independence supporter in the Liquiça district in March 1999.

Dos Santos, who was a member of Besih Merah Putih militia, was also convicted of two other murders in April of the same year: one near the Luiquiça church and another at the Dili home of independence leader Manuel Carrascalao.

Judges said that at the time the accused committed the murders, various Timorese and Indonesians were involved in systematic attacks against the population of East Timor.

There was, however, no evidence that dos Santos had been involved in this organized violence, said the judges, who also decided the accused should not be charged with crimes against humanity.

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