Manuel Carrascalão House Massacre

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The Manuel Carrascalão House Massacre occurred April 17, 1999 in Dili, East Timor, at the house of prominent East Timor independence leader Manuel Carrascalão. The massacre consisted of the murder of 12 people. It was conducted by the well-known Aitarak militia, then commanded by Eurico Guterres. The bodies of the victims were transported after they were killed to the village of Maubara, the headquarters of the Besi Merah Putih militia. There, the bodies were buried, in coffins, with personal possessions and identification. The bodies were exhumed later, in 2000, by the UNTAET Crime Scene Detachment.

The case was hampered by the Indonesian government's failure to cooperate in returning Guterres to East Timor for trial. After much deliberation, the Indonesian government agreed to allow Guterres to be extradited by the International Police, on the grounds that he be tried under Indonesian law rather than international law, and that he be allowed to carry out his sentence in Indonesia. In June 2002, Eurico Guterres went on trial. He was convicted, but only received a ten year prison sentence. He moved to Indonesia, where he was supposed to spend his sentence imprisoned. He has yet to be incarcerated, and has since started another militia group in Indonesia. Several other militia members were incarcerated for the crime, in East Timor, but also received little punishment.