Congressmen urge Susilo to solve Munir case
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
About 70 American congressmen urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to make "a clear legal move" to resolve the murder of noted rights campaigner Munir, who died in September last year of arsenic poisoning.
The congressmen also asked the Indonesian President to publish the report of by the now-defunct independent fact-finding team that has indicated the involvement of several high-ranking officials from the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) in the murder, which took place aboard a Garuda Indonesia flight traveling from Jakarta to the Netherlands via Singapore.
The Congressmen's letter was sent to Munir's widow Suciwati.
"I received the letter from the American congressmen on Oct. 27. It (the letter) is among many letters that I have received from my international friends. In the letter, the congressmen expressed their support for my fight for justice over the murder of my husband," Munir's wife Suciwati said on Wednesday.
The fact-finding team submitted its report to the President before its mandate ended in August. The report mentioned the alleged role of some high-ranking BIN officials in the poisoning of Munir.
The report, however, did not definitively state that BIN was involved as an institution, nor did it state how deeply BIN individuals were involved. In addition, it did not identify a clear motive behind the murder, mainly because of the agency's reluctance to give the team complete access to relevant documents and its armory.
The team urged the President to order the police to launch a full investigation of the BIN officers' alleged involvement.
In its report, the team also criticized the police for its poor performance in handling the case, prompting the team to ask the President to establish a supervisory committee to ensure the police seriously investigated the murder.
Former deputy chairman of the fact-finding team Asmara Nababan, however, said the President had been reluctant to act on the team's recommendations because of "political bargaining with certain parties."
"I guess the President is powerless against the power of the suspected murderers, and that is why he (the President) seemed to drop our recommendations," said Asmara, a former secretary- general of the National Commission on Human Rights.
"I also think that the President is worried about the political impact if he pursues the mastermind behind the murder," he said.
So far, only Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto -- who is also believed to be a BIN agent, has been put on trial.