Indonesia soldiers jailed for torture
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Indonesia on Monday sentenced three soldiers to between eight and 10 months in jail for disobedience after they were filmed torturing Papuan civilians.
A military tribunal found them guilty of abuse and disobeying orders and sentenced Second Sergeant Irwan Rizkiyanto to 10 months in jail, First Private Yakson Agu to nine months and First Private Tamrin Mahan Giri to eight months.
In footage posted on YouTube in 2010, the soldiers were seen applying a burning stick to the genitals of an unarmed man and threatening another with a knife as they interrogated them about the location of a weapons cache.
"They caught two men who had no identification documents and took them to a military post. The men suffered torture there," chief judge Lieutenant-Colonel Adil Karokaro told the tribunal in the Papua provincial capital, Jayapura.
"The victims had their hands and legs bound and their faces stepped on. One victim had his genitals burnt with a burning stick and was also suffocated with a plastic bag," Karokaro said.
The soldiers appeared solemn in their separate court martials and said they would "think over" appealing against their verdicts.
They had previously confessed to their crimes and said that they regretted their actions.
The United States has said it is "monitoring" the court martial after human rights activists criticised President Barack Obama's decision in 2010 to re-open military links with Indonesia's notorious special forces.
Indonesia has no law against torture. The charge of disobedience carries a maximum penalty of two-and-a-half years in jail.
The minor charges and the authorities' alleged reluctance to investigate the torture allegations have led rights activists to doubt the Indonesian government's pledges to rein in military abuse in return for renewed US military exchanges.
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