An Indonesian court found a former East Timor police chief not guilty of crimes against humanity over the territory's bloody independence vote in 1999, a ruling rights groups labelled absurd. The verdict for Brigadier General Timbul Silaen was the second handed down by Indonesia's special human rights court over a string of cases on the East Timor carnage. Four mid-ranking soldiers and a policeman were also acquitted of crimes against humanity on Thursday. The first verdict on Wednesday was also slammed.

"This is odd," said prominent rights lawyer Frans Hendra Winarta. "This verdict...will cause outcry in the international community -- we're talking about a human rights tribunal and this is the result?"

Prosecutors had demanded a 10 1/2-year jail term for Silaen for the charge. He faced a maximum penalty of death.

The presiding judge said there was no evidence Silaen backed pro-Jakarta militiamen as they waged a campaign of murder and destruction before and after East Timor voted to end 24 years of Indonesian rule.

"The defendant cannot be proven legally...guilty of gross human rights violations," presiding judge Andi Samsan Nganro told the court.

"There was no proof that his policies backed the violence. At that time the function of the police could not be performed properly and control had been shifted to the military," he added.

Silaen, dressed in police uniform, cried with members of his family including his wife as the court delivered its verdict.

The court on Wednesday found former governor of East Timor Abilio Soares guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to three years in jail. He faced a maximum penalty of death.

Rights groups said that ruling made a mockery of justice and was only an attempt to appease the international community.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson expressed concern over that verdict, saying prosecutors had presented the killings and rights violations "as the result of spontaneous conflict" between armed East Timorese factions rather than as "part of a widespread or systematic pattern of violence."

But even state prosecutors, who demanded a 10 1/2-year jail term for Soares, said they would appeal against the ruling because the charge carried a minimum sentence of 10 years.

PHOTO CAPTION

Former East Timor police chief Timbul Silaen (L) is pictured with ex-governor Abilio Soares at a central Jakarta court on March 14. REUTERS/Dadang Tri