Subject: Jesuit priest who refused to leave refugees
murdered in E Timor
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 05:12:29 EDT Jesuit priest murdered in East Timor
BANGKOK, Sept 12 (AFP) - A German Jesuit priest who refused to leave refugees in East
Timor paid with his life after he was shot and killed near his home, the Jesuit Refugee
Service said Sunday.
Father Karl Albrecht, 70, was shot by unidentified gunmen late Saturday night after he
heard an intruder outside his house, a JRS spokesman said.
"At about 11 pm on Saturday he was shot," said the spokesman.
Albrecht stayed in East Timor after other foreign aid workers left when pro-Jakarta
militias started to massacre people after the former Portuguese colony voted for
independence.
"He was spending his time driving around East Timor to give out food and medicine
to refugees," said the spokesman.
"He was a very fine man, the news that we have heard is amazing."
"I have never known anybody who was so courageous, his actions of driving his car
around Dili and delivering food and medicine to the needy was just amazing."
A fellow priest was alerted when he heard three shots, one of which he found had hit
Albrecht in the stomach, the spokesman said.
Albrecht was apparently shot after an intruder ordered him to turn off his torch, the
spokesman said.
"He wore a hearing aid so he might not have clearly understood the order to turn
off the flashlight.
"There was another father there who heard what was going on, he was rushed to the
hospital but it was too late."
The spokesman said Albrecht was appointed director of the newly opened East Timor
office of the Jesuit Refugee Service earlier this year.
Indonesian military spokesman on Sunday denied reports that refugees were under attack
from regular soldiers and pro-Jakarta militia in East Timor.
Troops have been accused of firing indiscriminately at thousands of refugees. Reporters
who have been to the East Timor capital Dili have said it has been devastated by days of
violence.
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