Balibo Five - 2007 Inquest Into Death of Brian Peters

2007 Inquest Into Death of Brian Peters

On 5 February 2007, the New South Wales (NSW) Coroner's Court began an inquest into Peters' death. Although he was a British citizen, lawyers for the journalists' families successfully argued that, as Peters was a resident of New South Wales at the time of his death, NSW jurisdiction applied. This was the first public inquiry held regarding the fate of the Balibo Five that had powers to call witnesses.

On the first day of the inquest, Yunus Yosfiah, former Minister for Information in the Habibie Government in Indonesia in 1998 and 1999, was accused of having led the 1975 attack in Balibo. Allegations were also raised that the journalists' bodies were dressed post-mortem into military uniforms and posed with weapons to make them appear to have taken an active part in the fighting.

The Australian media reported that the Australian Defence Signals Directorate intercepted an Indonesian military radio communication suggesting that the five were killed on the orders of superiors.

An eyewitness account described seeing the five men before they were killed. "At this point Indonesian Army Captain Yunus Yosfiah and his team shot the journalists who were unarmed with their hands in the air ... I saw them shoot. A lot of them were firing. They fired towards the white people."

According to evidence presented, the fifth Balibo victim locked himself in a bathroom but was stabbed in the back with a special forces knife when he emerged.

Mark Tedeschi QC, in his closing statement to the inquest, stated, "There is incontrovertible evidence, including eyewitness accounts, that Indonesian troops deliberately killed the Balibo five newsmen. At least three of the journalists were shot after an order was given by Captain Yunus Yosfiah and the fifth man was stabbed by officer Christoforus Da Silva. It is highly unlikely the Captain would have made the decision to kill the newsmen without the sanction of his superior officers. There is enough evidence to refer the case to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to consider prosecuting two unnamed people for the war crime of wilful killing."

The NSW coroner investigating held that "The Balibo Five ... were shot and or stabbed deliberately, and not in the heat of battle" in order to silence them from exposing Indonesia's 1975 East Timor invasion.