witnessed the execution of the injured Thoenes at the road-side. Two Indonesian army officers, Lt. Camilo dos Santos and Maj. Jacob Djoko Sarosa, were later blamed for his murder by a UN special investigator. Thoenes' death marked the first time a foreign reporter was killed in East Timor since 1975. In 2000, he received a posthumous press freedom award from the Washington D.C.-based National Press Club (NPC). The incident was the subject of a documentary, broadcast in October 2013, by fellow Dutch journalist Step Vaessen. On 21 September 1999, Stephanie was reporting from central Dili, together with her husband Andries, for Nederlandse Omroep Stichting. She still works in the region, now as the Djakarta correspondent for international broadcaster Al Jazeera English. The film was part of the Al Jazeera Correspondent series and featured an interview by the veteran South-East Asia journalist Jon Swain, who narrowly avoided the same fate later that day, nearby on the same road. Vaessen interviewed General Wiranto, the overall Indonesian military commander at the time and former Presidential candidate, and BJ Habibie the President of Indonesia in 1999. The General suggested that the military had to obey government policy, whilst the President suggested he had no personal responsibility for the military's actions. The international community tends to indict only those who are already disowned. Legacy The Financial Times set up the Sander Thoenes Prize in his honour. The award offers recent journalism graduates, each year, a three-month internship at the Financial Times headquarters in London and a scholarship to cover living expenses. The Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club (JFCC) announced a scholarship fund in his honor on September 7, 2006. The annual JFCC scholarship is awarded to support the training of East Timorese journalists. Hampshire College, Thoenes' alma mater in Amherst MA. has the SANDER THOENES DIVISION II AND DIVISION III RESEARCH AWARD. Awards are made from an endowment established by his friends from Hampshire and around the world. The award is given to Division III students working in journalism; documentary photography, film or video; international relations; globalization; peace-building; civil society and human rights. External links Sander Memorial site Financial Times Sander Thoenes award References 1968 births 1999 deaths Assassinated Dutch journalists Hampshire College alumni Dutch expatriates in Kazakhstan People from Enschede Dutch people murdered abroad Journalists killed while covering the Indonesian occupation of East Timor Deaths by firearm in East Timor 20th-century Dutch journalists