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SYDNEY: East Timor’s President Jose Ramos-Horta has named the
rebel soldier who shot and seriously wounded him in an attack at his
home last month, an Australian newspaper said Thursday.
Ramos-Horta, who is recovering in an Australian
hospital, named the shooter as Marcelo Caetano, a man he once nursed
back to health after Caetano was himself shot, the president’s
brother was quoted as telling The Australian.
Caetano was a junior member of the rebel group
led by former army major Alfredo Reinado, who was killed in the
attack on Ramos-Horta’s residence in the East Timorese capital
Dili on February 11, Arsenio Ramos-Horta said.
“Jose recognized him. He didn’t say anything
as he fired his rifle. My brother was shot only 18 or 19 meters
[yards] from where Marcelo was standing,” he said.
Caetano was a former member of the East Timorese
army who deserted with 600 other soldiers in 2006, the newspaper
said.
He is now believed to be in hiding with other
rebels wanted for the near-simultaneous attacks on Ramos-Horta and
Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, who survived unhurt.
Asked how his brother could be sure it was
Caetano who shot him, Arsenio Ramos-Horta said: “The president
knew him well. Marcelo himself was shot a couple of years ago in the
chest, at Tasi Tolu [west of Dili].”
“When he needed an operation, the president
[who was then the prime minister] organized for him to get an
operation with the best doctors in Dili. After that, he stayed in
our place for a couple of weeks in 2006 as he got better.”
Arsenio Ramos-Horta has been constantly at his
brother’s side as he recovers from his wounds in a Darwin hospital
in northern Australia, The Australian said.
A spokesman for the president’s office, Joel
Perreira, told Agence France-Presse there would be no official
comment on the report.
“This is still under investigation so there is
no official statement from the government side or our presidential
office regarding who shot him,” Perreira said. “This is his own
opinion.”
The Australian said it was understood that
Caetano had been shot during one of the numerous flare-ups in Timor
in 2006 and Ramos-Horta, who had spoken to people from all sides of
the conflict, took a personal interest in him.
“It’s incredible he would shoot the
president,” Arsenio Ramos-Horta told the paper.
-- AFP
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