A coroner recommended a war crime investigation early today after ruling that five Australian-based journalists, including a Scot, were deliberately killed during an Indonesian invasion of East Timor more than 30 years ago.

The finding followed an extensive inquest which contradicted the official version of events by Australian and Indonesian governments which concluded that the journalists were killed accidentally in crossfire involving Indonesian troops and East Timorese defenders on October 16, 1975.

New South Wales state Deputy Coroner Dorelle Pinch, investigating the death of one of the journalists Brian Peters, found that he was "shot and/or stabbed deliberately, and not in the heat of battle, by members of the Indonesian Special Forces ... to prevent him from revealing that Indonesian Special Forces had participated in the attack on Balibo".

Mr Peters, a British cameraman, had gone to East Timor with Malcolm Rennie, 29, from Barrhead, Renfrewshire, who was on his first foreign assignment for an Australian television network.

Ms Pinch said her findings relating to Mr Peters would be the same for the other journalists. She said war crimes may have been committed under Australian law and said she was referring the case to federal prosecutors to determine whether war crime charges could be brought.

Secret documents released in 2000 showed the Australian government knew in advance of the East Timor incursion and stood by for three days while Jakarta's troops prepared for it.

An invasion two months later led to 24 years of brutal Indonesian rule in East Timor.

Early this morning Mr Rennie's cousin, Margaret Wilson, speaking from her London home, said: "Hopefully this brings us a step closer to securing justice for Malcolm and his colleagues."