The four, wearing red T-shirts and handcuffed, were seen boarding a charter plane under armed police escort at the Halim Perdanakusumah airport in East Jakarta.

More uniformed and plainclothes police, some of them armed, were deployed on the runway as the rebels left for Timor Leste to face justice over the Feb 11 attacks.

There were no comments from the deportees or police at the airport.

The airplane would stop at Bali where the four would be handed over to Timor Leste officials including Prosecutor General Longuinos Monteiro, before their final flight to Dili, officials said.

Indonesian police arrested the four former soldiers from Timor Leste - two in a border town in West Timor and two in Jakarta - in the weeks after the failed attacks which almost killed Timor Leste's President Jose Ramos-Horta.

The president was shot several times when gunmen ambushed him at his Dili residence and had to be flown to Darwin in northern Australia for life-saving surgery.

Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped unhurt from a separate ambush on his convoy the same day.

Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado and one of his men were killed in the attacks.

Reinado's deputy, Gastao Salsinha, and 11 of his men gave themselves up to the police last week.

The identities of the four rebels arrested in Indonesia have not been made public.

Tens of thousands of people fled into Indonesian-controlled West Timor during unrest surrounding a 1999 vote for independence. Many have since opted to remain in Indonesia. -- AFP