East Timor leader 'tortured'

LISBON (Reuter) - Portugal yesterday dismissed a televised statement by the captured East Timor rebel leader, Xanana Gusmao, in which he renounced his 17-year struggle for independence. '(Xanana) did not have a lawyer or conditions to defend himself and he was certainly tortured and threatened,' said President Mario Soares. A television film depicting Mr Gusmao purportedly accepting the incorporation of the former Portuguese colony into Indonesia and calling on his guerrilla comrades to surrender was shown on Portuguese television on Tuesday night.

Mr Gusmao, leader of the Falantil guerrilla movement, was arrested in the East Timor capital of Dili last month and has been under interrogation by the military on the island of Bali.