An Australian intelligence officer ordered interrogators to extract a videotaped confession from a Timorese man after he was allegedly tortured in a secret interrogation centre in East Timor in 1999.
Australian soldiers believed the man was an Indonesian special forces soldier linked to militia violence.
However, Bartolomeus Ulu has told Four Corners he falsely confessed, under duress, to being a Kopassus special forces operative after days of abuse in Australian custody.
He was among 14 Timorese interrogated over three and a half days in a clandestine, Australian-run facility at Dili's heliport.
A military police special inquiry later recommended torture charges be brought against three Australian commanders of the facility.
Four Corners has been told that the legal advice said the evidence did support charges being laid. However, it said prosecuting the interrogation centre commanders was not fair because they were following their training.
A hot isolation room and blacked-out ski goggles
Documents seen by Four Corners show that after the group was moved from the heliport interrogation facility to the official detention centre run by the military police, intelligence officers continued to interrogate Mr Ulu.
An Australian military policeman told investigators he was disturbed by how Mr Ulu was treated, which caused a rift between the military police and the intelligence officers who were interrogating the detainees.
Mr Ulu was placed in an isolation room with covered windows, deprived of sleep and forced to wear blacked-out ski goggles and act out commands to the banging of a ration tin, military police guards said.
"I recall that it was very hot in the isolation room, the windows had been covered up," one military police officer said.
One guard said Mr Ulu was given sips of water at regular intervals but only given food as a form of reward.
"I wish to state that these events disturbed me," the MP told investigators.
At one point when Mr Ulu was at the detention centre, intelligence officers told the military police guards to keep him awake by banging a ration tin.
"We did not do this because we did not believe this was a Military Police task," one military police guard told investigators.
"He was given food and water and allowed to sleep. [Intelligence] found out about this the next day and this upset them."
One intelligence officer was furious that the guards had ignored their instructions about how the detainee was to be treated.
"This guy was allowed to sleep for 10 to 12 hours, and we then had to wait another – I think it was another 70 hours … we had to wear him down again," the intelligence officer told investigators.
"In fact, I thought [the military police guards] should have been f***ing charged and sent home."
Order to get confession on tape
Some 12 days after Mr Ulu was captured, there was an order from an intelligence officer for interrogators to secretly film him confessing to being a Kopassus (Indonesian special forces) member on a mission in East Timor.
A memo from a senior Australian intelligence officer seen by Four Corners ordered the interrogators set up the "debrief" session to "allow surreptitious taping/recording ensuring [the detainee's] face in plain view". The memo ordered that, if an American interrogator was used, their uniform should not be visible.
The chief American interrogator in East Timor assisting International Force for East Timor (INTERFET) told Four Corners the Australian military then asked his superiors at the United States Pacific Command if the video could be released publicly for broadcast on television.
That interrogator, who asked not to be named, said the Australian military wanted the video "to be used politically to strengthen the Australian position that Indonesia was actively interfering with the transition of East Timor".
"They asked permission to use that on TV," he said. "They asked permission from the US people and the US people said, 'Absolutely not'."
Publicly releasing images of detainees can be a breach of the Geneva Convention, which states that prisoners are to be protected from "public curiosity".
While the ADF was not bound by the Geneva Convention in East Timor, it publicly committed to those standards.
The memo told interrogators to ensure Mr Ulu was "made to feel comfortable, dressed in a presentable manner and provided a cold or hot drink".
By the time the order was given to film Mr Ulu confessing, interrogators had already decided he was not a "full KOPASSUS member", an intelligence report shows.
The American interrogator told Four Corners it was decided that Mr Ulu was an "auxiliary", meaning he was recruited by Kopassus to gather information.
During his interrogations, Mr Ulu confessed to being a member of Kopassus.
He says that was a false confession, made under duress.
"After I confessed to being Kopassus, the torture reduced," he told Four Corners.
The US interrogator said he witnessed "nothing that would constitute torture" during the interrogations.
Australians had 'no right to interrogate' Indonesian soldiers, former legal officer says
An Indonesian soldier, Celestino De Andrade, was also detained with Mr Ulu and was interrogated multiple times.
He says he told INTERFET soldiers immediately that he was a Private in the TNI (the Indonesian National Armed Forces).
Interrogation records show intelligence officers quickly accepted the soldier was telling the truth, saying he was "forthright and honest throughout the session … [and] has little further to tell us".
Mr De Andrade told Four Corners he was tortured while being held by the Australians.
"We were hit, kicked, stood on. If we weren't sitting up properly, they would kick us," he said.
"Military are not allowed to be kicked, to be tortured. [They should] just take down the information," he said.
Former INTERFET legal officer David Freeman — who was not consulted and knew nothing of Mr De Andrade or Mr Ulu's interrogations — told Four Corners: "We had no right to interrogate TNI soldiers."
"They were their own sovereign force and … Indonesia had acceded to the United Nations to allow us to be there to carry out the UN mandate."
Mr Freeman said that, under INTERFET policy, people could be detained only on suspicion of criminal activity or being a security threat.
"My legal advice, and my command advice would be, once we had gleaned that he was not a security threat and he [was involved in] no criminal offences, I believe he should have been repatriated in a proper, courteous, diplomatic way."
Cosgrove repeatedly ordered to keep two men in custody, documents show
Secret documents seen by Four Corners show Sir Peter Cosgrove, then-INTERFET commander, repeatedly ordered that Mr Ulu and and Mr De Andrade be kept in custody, overruling a legal officer, who had recommended their release.
On each occasion, the detainee reports stated, for both men, there was "no evidence of criminal activity … [and] no [intelligence] interest".
In a statement to Four Corners, Sir Peter said the men were not detained for "criminal activity" but "the suspicion that they were TNI caused disquiet about possible further association between Militia and TNI inside East Timor".
Asked about the legality of detaining and interrogating an Indonesian soldier, Sir Peter pointed to the UN resolution that allowed INTERFET to "take all necessary measures" to restore peace and security.
At the time, Indonesia was denying that its troops were behind attacks on civilians, but it was widely believed TNI soldiers were working with militia to carry out violence.
Both men were eventually released in early November, 1999, a month after their capture.
Sir Peter told Four Corners he did not recall any request for a video of Mr Ulu's confession and said any questions about the request were a matter for the intelligence officers involved.
