Special Panels for Serious Crimes

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The Special Panels for Serious Crimes SPSC (also East Timor Special Panels ) were a special chamber of the East Timorese District Court of Dili . She was supposed to deal with the human rights violations in the context of the independence referendum in East Timor in 1999 .

history

District Court of Dili (2018)

In the run-up to the referendum, in which the people of East Timor voted for independence from the occupying power of Indonesia, Indonesian security forces and pro-Indonesian militias tried to intimidate the population and destabilize the situation. After the announcement of the clear victory of the pro-independence activists, the Indonesians launched Operation Donner, a retaliatory measure in which 1,500 to 2,000 people were killed. 70% of the population had to flee their homes or were forcibly deported by the Indonesians to West Timor , and houses and infrastructure were destroyed.

On October 25, 1999, UN Security Council Resolution 1272 called for the "systematic, widespread and proven violations of international law and human rights in East Timor" to be investigated. The United Nations Interim Administration for East Timor (UNTAET) complied with the UNTAET Regulation 2000/15 in July 2000, establishing the Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) for investigations and the SPSC for legal prosecution. The two authorities were responsible for war crimes , crimes against humanity and individual crimes of murder, torture and rape committed in East Timor between January 1 and October 25, 1999. All SCU allegations were dealt with by the SPSC. Each panel consisted of two foreign judges and one East Timorese judge. The negotiations were monitored by the independent Judicial System Monitoring Program (JSMP).

The Court of Appeal was also established in 2000 as an appeal court for judgments by the SPSC . From 2002 to 2003 there was a 19 month period in which it was inactive until it was replaced by the newly established Tribunal de Recurso de Timor-Leste .

On May 20, 2005, SCU and the SPSC ended their work. The UN-based judiciary had tried 391 people, but 316 of them were in Indonesia. 87 defendants, mostly fellow travelers in pro-Indonesian militias , were jailed. Because the governments in Jakarta and Dili did not cooperate with the court or did not want to strain the mutual relationship, Indonesian officials from the administration and the military were not brought to justice. The SPSC's funds were tight, there were few witnesses and the defense in court inadequate. The conviction rate was 97.7%.

During the 2006 riots in East Timor , the SCU office was ransacked and important evidence against Indonesian suspects was destroyed.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Office of the General Prosecutor of the Republic Timor-Leste ( Memento from January 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ A b International Bar Association: Special Panel for Serious Crimes (East Timor) , accessed August 9, 2019.
  3. ^ East-West-Center: THE SERIOUS CRIMES TRIALS IN EAST TIMOR: AN OVERVIEW , accessed on May 16, 2017.
  4. ↑ Monika Schlicher: East Timor confronts its past ( memento of November 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), missio 2005, ISSN  1618-6222 (PDF; 304 kB)
  5. ↑ a b ABC, May 31, 2006, Serious Crimes Unit office looted in Dili