BIN assigns senior agents to assist Munir investigation
Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Eva. C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
National Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief Syamsir Siregar announced on Thursday that he has assigned three senior officers to assist the government-sponsored fact-finding team in finding the killers of noted human rights advocator Munir.
Syamsir vowed that BIN, whose agents have been linked to last year's murder of Munir, would help solve the high-profile case.
"We want to solve it," he said after attending a meeting at Vice President Jusuf Kalla's office, asserting that there was no evidence to back the allegation against the agency in the murder.
Syamsir said the three senior officers would draw up technical matters for coordination between BIN and the fact-finding team.
The rights campaigner was found dead on Sept. 7 last year on board a Garuda Indonesia plane carrying him to Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
An autopsy conducted by the Dutch authorities found an excessive amount of arsenic in Munir's body, indicating that he had been deliberately poisoned during the first leg of his flight between Jakarta and Singapore.
Syamsir declined to identify the three BIN officials he had assigned to assist the team, saying it would be discussed further with the team.
He denied that BIN's decision to assign the three senior agents was in response to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's recent order for all relevant institutions to give the team access to any developments in the investigation.
The move was aimed at ensuring that BIN was open to the investigation, he said. "There was no presidential order given to me," Syamsir said.
The fact-finding team had earlier accused BIN of being reluctant to cooperate in the investigation, after the agency canceled several scheduled meetings with it.
Team chief Brig. Gen. Marsudi Hanafi confirmed several BIN officers would help his side in the probe.
Currently the team is designing a proposal for the agreement between BIN and the team, he added. "We hope the team, including intelligence officers, will make it easier for us to exchange information between the team, police investigators and BIN staff members."
Marsudi said his team would cross check data and facts on the alleged involvement of BIN agents in the Munir case.
BIN, he added, may not be involved as an institution in the case, but the involvement of its agents was likely.
The National Police have named as suspects Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto as well as Oedi Iriyanto and Yeti Susmiyarti, both flight attendants, who were on board the flight Munir took from Jakarta to Amsterdam.
Pollycarpus was aboard the airplane as an aviation security officer in the first leg to Singapore, while the two flight attendants served the meals to passengers, including Munir.
However, it was later found that Pollycarpus' assignment letter was typed and signed more than a week after Munir's death. Former Garuda president director Indra Setiawan was the one who gave the assignment to Pollycarpus, while the state-owned airline's vice president of corporate security, Ramelgia Anwar, signed the assignment letter instead of Garuda's operational director as usually is the case.
Marsudi urged the police to also name Ramelgia and Indra as suspects since they were also linked to the alleged document forgery, a charge laid against Pollycarpus apart from assisting in a premeditated murder.
Police said Ramelgia Anwar should have been questioned for a second time on Thursday, but it was postponed until Friday along with the questioning of Indra Setiawan.