Government News Index
Intercepts remain secret
The Advertiser
15mar02
AUSTRALIA will not provide United Nations investigators with top-secret intercepts linking senior Indonesian generals to the destruction of East Timor.
The material was collected by the Government's shadowy electronic spying agency the Defence Signals Directorate.
UN human rights investigators are trying to identify those who ordered the deaths of hundreds of people and the forced removal of tens of thousands following East Timor's independence vote in September 1999.
According to reports, the DSD intercepts reveal a secret command chain running from the Security Minister General Feisal Tanjung down to generals and colonels.
Trials of several people allegedly involved in the massacre at Suai in September 1999 began in Jakarta yesterday.
None of the officers reportedly named in the DSD intercepts, however, are in the dock.
Defence Minister Robert Hill said the Government had supplied some information to UN investigators.
He also revealed that the Australian Federal Police would investigate how DSD material had been leaked.
A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said some information had been given to Indonesian authorities.