INDONESIA insists the Balibo Five case is closed, despite fresh reports that a telegram sent by an Australian Government minister revealed the five journalists were murdered in East Timor.
A widow of one of the five, Shirley Shackleton said she received the telegram from Whitlam-era foreign minister Don Willesee days after her husband Greg and four other journalists were reported missing in East Timor in 1975.
In his dying days in 2003, Willesee told his daughter that the Australian Government covered up the affair, The Australian newspaper reported today.
A Sydney inquest into the death of one of the Balibo Five is due to report its findings next week.
Indonesia's foreign affairs ministry spokesman Yohanes Kristiarto Soeryo Legowo said Indonesia's position on the case had not changed.
"Basically, for the Indonesian Government, it is a closed case, as simple as that," he said.
"I don't want to comment further.
"Whether they want to have such interpretations, it does not change our view and position.
"We have conveyed our position on the coroner's court as well – that they don't have jurisdiction here and I want to stress once again that it is a closed case."
The inquest sparked controversy in Indonesia in May, after a senior Jakarta politician who had been visiting Sydney flew home in anger after being asked to testify at the inquest.
Former Jakarta governor and now potential presidential candidate, Sutiyoso, was allegedly a member of a special Indonesian military unit that attacked Balibo in 1975.
Brian Peters, Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Malcolm Rennie and Tony Stewart were gunned down in the East Timorese border town of Balibo.
During the inquest, counsel assisting Mark Tedeschi QC, asked the coroner to recommend war crimes charges against those responsible.
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