Indonesia team completes probe into death of Dutch journalist

Asian Political News, March 11, 2002

DILI, East Timor, March 8 Kyodo

An Indonesian investigative mission has completed a probe into the September 1999 killing of a Dutch journalist in East Timor, the mission chief said Friday.

Abdul Muis Gussing, leader of the Indonesian Serious Human Rights Violations Investigation Team, told a press conference that the chief of investigation in Jakarta will make a decision on the evidence obtained in the investigations.

Sander Robert Thoenes was allegedly killed in the mass violence that followed East Timor's overwhelming decision to secede from Indonesia in a U.N.-organized referendum held in August 1999.

Hundreds of people were killed during the post-referendum violence carried out by pro-Jakarta militias with the support of the Indonesian National Army (TNI).

However, at the same press conference Gerrit Thiry, chief superintendent of the National Police Agency of the Netherlands, said the results of two investigations carried out with the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor proved the Indonesian military's involvement in Thoenes' death.

''We are convinced that Battalion 745 of the TNI was responsible for the killing of Sander Thoenes,'' Thiry said.