DILI, East Timor - A dozen rebels suspected of involvement in attacks on East Timor's top leaders surrendered to authorities Tuesday, and met the president in an emotional ceremony.
Rebel commander Gastau Salsinha and 11 of his men, believed to have carried out a Feb. 11 ambushes on the premier and president, turned themselves in with 11 firearms, Lt. Fernando Gausege, a military official, said.
Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped unharmed from the ambush of his motorcade by mutinous soldiers. An attack the same day on President Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, nearly killed him.
Ramos-Horta, who returned to the country last week after recovering from several gunshot wounds in an Australian hospital, met the rebels at Presidential Palace.
Marcelo Caetano, the rebel whom President Jose Ramos-Horta said shot him, cried and kissed the president's hand as the television cameras rolled outside the palace.
"I am happy our sons returned to Dili and surrendered their weapons," he told reporters, weeping. "The truth will be established by the court."
In an interview with the military, commander Salsinha apologized to the people of East Timor "who suffered during the crisis and many of whom are still living in refugee camps.
"My men surrendered for the people of this country. ... They are ready to face justice," he said.
The surrender ended a massive manhunt by East Timorese soldiers and international peacekeepers, launched when the rebels escaped into the jungle after the attacks.
The attacks showed the lingering volatility in East Timor after it declared independence in 2002, following decades of harsh rule by Indonesia and a period of U.N. administration.
The attempts on the lives of Ramos-Horta -- who won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to the Indonesian occupation -- and Gusmao marked a sudden escalation in a bitter dispute between the government and several hundred ex-soldiers.
The troops were fired in 2006 after going on strike to protest alleged discrimination. In a surge of violence, dozens of people were killed in clashes between government troops and the ex-soldiers, gang warfare and widespread arson.
