Gen. Peter Cosgrove directs a team of Indonesian and Australian soldiers at the site where the body of Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes was found on Sept. 22, 1999. The convoy reassembled and began moving along the main Becora road. Like Dili, its buildings were mostly gutted. Any East Timorese would have known to lie low, and Mr. de Oliveira did so. A square-faced young man with bristly hair, he says the 745 soldiers killed his brother's friend Manuel Andreas by shooting him in the back as he ran down a side street away from the convoy.
Residents say that soldiers from another unit later rolled the body into a drainage ditch.
Shortly after Swain began calling for help, Thoenes and his driver, Florindo da Conceicao Araujo, put themselves on a collision course with Battalion 745. Tooling along the main road, Mr. Araujo suddenly saw six soldiers on three motorcycles coming straight at them. Some were holding guns and shouting, ordering him to stop. Araujo yelled for Thoenes to hang on and spun the bike around. But the soldiers quickly closed the distance and began firing.