Police cross-examine Munir suspects<\/p>\n
Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Three Garuda Indonesia employees, suspected of having a role in
\nlast year's murder of noted human rights activist Munir,
\nconfronted each other during a five-hour interrogation on
\nThursday to defend their statements in the case.<\/p>\n
The Garuda employees are pilot\/security officer Pollycarpus
\nBudihari Priyanto, and flight attendants Yeti Susmiyarti and Oedi
\nIrianto, who prepared and served meals to business class
\npassengers on the Jakarta-Singapore-Amsterdam flight wherein
\nMunir was believed to be poisoned last September.<\/p>\n
Garuda lawyer Wirawan Adnan said Yeti admitted that she saw
\nPollycarpus enter the business class pantry twice during the
\nflight.<\/p>\n
Earlier, both Yeti and Oedi had been quoted by another lawyer,
\nMohammad Assegaf, as saying they had not seen anyone enter the
\npantry except themselves.<\/p>\n
\"Yeti now says she saw Pollycarpus leave his seat and walk
\ninto the pantry. She saw him come out and enter again for a
\nsecond time while writing something on a piece of paper,\" Wirawan
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
He added, however, that Oedi, who claimed to have been in the
\npantry at all times during the flight, did not see Pollycarpus
\nenter the pantry area, in which passengers and Garuda crew
\nmembers are not allowed, except for those in charge of serving
\nmeals.<\/p>\n
Yeti's statement will likely put Pollycarpus' legal team in a
\ndifficult position in the case, in which he was charged with
\n\"facilitating\" the murder of Munir as he had arranged for the
\nrights campaigner to sit in business class.<\/p>\n
Munir, a co-founder of human rights groups Kontras and
\nImparsial, was found dead on board a Garuda plane carrying him
\nfrom Jakarta to Amsterdam on Sept. 7 last year.<\/p>\n
An autopsy conducted by the Dutch authorities found an
\nexcessive amount of arsenic in Munir's body, indicating that he
\nwas deliberately poisoned, possibly during the first leg of the
\nflight between Jakarta and Singapore.<\/p>\n
Police investigators believe that the arsenic might have been
\nput into Munir's meal that was prepared by Oedi and served by
\nYeti.<\/p>\n
However, unlike Pollycarpus, whom many local rights
\ncampaigners believe has links to the State Intelligence Agency
\n(BIN), Oedi and Yeti have not been jailed, despite being named
\nsuspects.<\/p>\n
Garuda has, meanwhile, addressed Pollycarpus' complaints by
\nproviding him with lawyers, including Mohammad Assegaf and
\nWirawan Adnan.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/police-cross-examine-munir-suspects-1447893297",
"image": ""
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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