Australian cleared over E.Timor assassination bid
AFP DILI March 2, 2010 — An East Timor court on Wednesday cleared an Australian woman of the attempted assassination of the president and prime minister in a 2008 attack, but jailed more than 20 rebel gunmen.
“Today is the most important day of my life. I have rightfully regained my freedom,” Angelita Pires, 43, said outside the court after judges dismissed the prosecutors’ argument that she was a key player in the plot.
“I’d like to say that I have learnt that liberty is one of the most important things an individual can possess,” added Pires, who had faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Pires, an East Timor-born Australian, had been tried for seven months together with 27 ex-soldiers over the February 2008 gun assault on President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.
She was charged on several counts including that she was an “indirect author” of the plot to kill Ramos-Horta. Prosecutors stated that she had persuaded her lover, rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, to mount the attack.
Pires, who spent several months in the mountains with Reinado before the attacks, used to work in a supermarket in Australia but returned to East Timor in 1999 and worked for a time as an interpreter for the UN Serious Crimes Unit.
Of the other defendants, 23 were sentenced to jail terms ranging from nine to 16 years. The remaining four were acquitted.
Gunmen had shot at Ramos-Horta outside his Dili home, leaving him grievously wounded, and also fired on the car of Gusmao, who escaped unhurt.
Reinado was shot dead by the president’s guards during the attack and his followers subsequently surrendered.
The death of the charismatic Reinado, coupled with public distress over Ramos-Horta’s brush with death, helped bring an end to the rebellion.
Pires, who was in Dili at the time of the attack, was arrested six days later.
Prosecutor Felismeno Cardoso had said Pires was pivotal to the plot as she made several trips to the northern Australian city of Darwin to raise funds for the rebels.
But Pires’s Australian lawyer Jon Tippett argued that the prosecutors had no evidence to support the claim. Outside the court, he expressed his relief at her acquittal.
“It’s been a real emotional roller-coaster, literally, and as a barrister what you do is you throw your heart and soul into a case and you hope that will be enough,” he said.
Tippett said he thought most of the defendants were foot-soldiers and not ringleaders of any anti-government conspiracy.
“I think it’s unfortunate that they received such heavy sentences, and that will, to some extent, affect any celebrations we have,” he said.
The assassination attempts had raised fears of a resumption of violence, coming two years after the desertion of 600 soldiers led by Reinado triggered street fighting that killed some 40 people and forced 100,000 from their homes.
The soldiers had complained of regional discrimination over promotions in the state, which has an east-east ethnic divide. The rebels on trial included some of the deserters.
Ramos-Horta, who was shot three times and went into a coma, was airlifted to Darwin for emergency treatment. He returned home after two months of treatment.
The world community had voiced outrage over the attack on Ramos-Horta, a Nobel peace laureate who for decades had campaigned abroad for East Timor’s independence. Gusmao had led guerrilla resistance to Indonesia’s rule.
East Timor won formal independence in 2002, three years after a UN-backed referendum that saw an overwhelming vote to break away from Indonesia following a 24-year occupation.