East Timor to seek arrests over assassination attempts

DILI (Reuters) - East Timor's prosecutor-general said onWednesday he would issue arrest warrants for 18 people believedto be involved in assassination attempts on the Southeast Asiannation's president and prime minister.

President Jose Ramos-Horta was critically wounded bygunfire from rebel soldiers early on Monday, while PrimeMinister Xanana Gusmao escaped unhurt in a separate attack onhis motorcade.

"We're coming today to a conclusion to issue the warrants,"Prosecutor-General Longinhos Monteiro told reporters in Dili.

Asked how strong the evidence was, he said: "99 percent,"but added "I do not want to mention the names of those involvedat this stage."

Australian troops continued to arrive in Dili on Wednesdayto reinforce international peacekeepers and the 1,600-strongUnited Nations police detachment, who are enforcing a state ofemergency declared in the wake of Monday's attacks.

Ramos-Horta was airlifted to Darwin in northern Australiaon Monday for emergency medical treatment for gunshot wounds.Surgeons carried out a further operation on Wednesday.

His chief surgeon, Phil Carson, said the operation revealedthe president was likely shot twice, not three times as thoughtearlier, and he would need several more operations.

He would have considerable scarring, but would make a fullrecovery, Carson said.

The president is expected to stay in a medically inducedcoma until next week after two rounds of surgery to rebuild hisright lung and remove bullet fragments.

FEARS OF MORE VIOLENCE

Some analysts had said East Timor could suffer furtherviolence and political chaos after rebel leader Alfredo Reinadodied in Monday's attack on Ramos-Horta.

The president had met Reinado for talks as recently asJanuary in a bid to reach a deal in which rebel soldiers wouldgive up their arms in return for talks on outstandinggrievances and legal issues.

However, the streets in Dili remained calm.

Despite fears that pro-Reinado members of the rulingcoalition might withdraw their support following the death ofthe rebel leader, sparking the collapse of the government, amembers of the coalition said there were no signs of a split.

"The events have made the coalition stronger. The attacksshow who had good intention and who did not," said Aderito Hugoda Costa, a member of parliament in Gusmao's party.

Reinado had led a revolt against the government and wascharged with murder after factional violence in 2006. Laterthat year he walked out of jail with 50 other inmates,embarrassing security forces.

Former prime minister Mari Alkatiri, who issecretary-general of the main opposition party Fretilin, calledfor early elections to settle a political impasse inparliament.

Fretilin is the dominant party in parliament, but did notform a government because it lacks an absolute majority.

Ramos-Horta, 58, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996for waging a nonviolent struggle for independence, split fromFretilin.

Monteiro said the bodies of Reinado and his guard would behanded over to their families today. Reinado would be buriedoutside Dili, he said, declining to name the area.

East Timor gained full independence from Indonesia in 2002after a U.N.-sponsored vote in 1999 that was marred byviolence.

Indonesian invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975,and many thousands of East Timorese died during the brutaloccupation.

(Additional reporting by Tito Belo in Dili and Rob Taylorin Canberra; Writing by Sara Webb)