THE VICTIM'S SISTER "How Can This Happen?"

As he fled from the soldiers, something made Joliao Soares-Gusmo jump to the left. His friend Leandro Perreira wasn't so lucky. The 27-year-old simply turned and ran; within seconds he fell dead, struck by a bullet in the back.

Joliao and Leandro, a language student, were among a group of young men who, as street battles raged in Dili on the night of May 27, took refuge in the compound of the Don Bosco Catholic church, in the city's west. There they huddled, along with hundreds of other terrified residents of the district, listening to the sound...