Proof military 'ordered deaths'

December 09, 2006 12:00am

FIVE young Australians were executed on the orders of Indonesian military chiefs, according to sensational evidence omitted from official government reports.

The statement by a top lawyer, George Brownbill, contradicts the official line that the five men, all journalists, were caught in a crossfire in Balibo while covering Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975.

The Saturday Daily Telegraph has learned that Mr Brownbill will be called as a key witness at the first inquest into the tragedy - to be held at the New South Wales Coroners Court early next year.

Mr Brownbill said he saw a telexed intelligence report, marked Top Secret, of covertly-intercepted radio traffic between an officer commanding Indonesian forces in East Timor and his bosses in Jakarta.

Intercepted just hours after the killings, it said: "In accordance with your instructions" the five had been located and shot.

The officer then asked his superior for orders about what to do with the bodies and the journalists' personal effects. The bodies were looted and burned.

Channel 9 cameraman Brian Peters, 29, and reporter Malcolm Rennie, 28, Channel 7 reporter Greg Shackleton, 27, cameraman Gary Cunningham, 27, and sound recordist Tony Stewart, 21, all died at Balibo on October 16, 1975.

In evidence which will further embarrass the Australian Government over its relationship with Indonesia, investigators with the NSW coronial unit have been told the explosive intelligence cable may still exist.

Mr Brownbill made his statement reluctantly in 1999 to former National Crime Authority head Tom Sherman, who was conducting the second government inquiry into the deaths of the journalists. >>>cont

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Massacre: The day Aussie journos were gunned down