Dili (East Timor), Aug 12: An East Timorese court today sentenced a former militia leader to eight years and eight months in prison for ordering a bloody attack on civilians during the country's break from Indonesia in 1999. Joao Sarmento, who led the notorious Tim Ablai militia, pleaded guilty to three charges of murder and forced deportation of civilians during the violence that swept East Timor before and after it voted for independence in a UN-sponsored ballot.

Indonesia's military formed the Ablai militia and others like it to intimidate the East Timorese into voting for continued union with Jakarta.

Aided by the army, the militias killed more than 1,000 people before, during and after the ballot. The violence only stopped when international peacekeepers arrived.
Most militia members fled to neighbouring Indonesian-held west Timor after Indonesian troops withdrew from their former province.

Sarmento was captured by Australian peacekeepers at the border in Suai district on 13 March 2001. He was charged with ordering the killings of three men during raids on villages in Manufahi district and with forcibly deporting thousands of civilians to West Timor.

After the sentence was read, Sarmento said he would appeal.

"I did not deserve such a harsh sentence because all the people who forced me to commit these crimes are not standing trial. They are all in Indonesia," he said


Bureau Report