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East Timor is allowing people who committed crimes against humanity to go free due to a legal loophole, Amnesty International says.
An Amnesty report, released on Tuesday, says Timorese law allows for amnesties and pardons and this has "created a culture of impunity".
Amnesty says when East Timor was under Indonesian occupation, crimes including torture, sexual violence, unlawful killings and enforced disappearances were acute.
More human rights abuses occurred around the 1999 poll for independence, which was marred by violence.
Amnesty's researcher on East Timor, Isabelle Arradon, who wrote Timor Leste: Justice in the Shadow, said war criminals had been set free under the law.
"The authorities in Timor Leste are compromising on justice to seek peace - but trading away justice for such serious crimes only undermines the rule of law, and cannot resolve the trauma of the past," the London-based researcher said in a statement.
Amnesty is calling for a different approach to amnesties and pardons, and for the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for war crimes in East Timor.
