Court continues Pollycarpus' trial

Court continues Pollycarpus' trial

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Central Jakarta District Court on Tuesday turned down a
request by a key suspect in the murder of rights activist Munir
for the case to be dismissed.

The panel of judges said the indictment against Garuda pilot
Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto was clear and convincing and in
accordance with the law.

"We order the prosecutors to continue the prosecution,"
presiding judge Cicut Sutiarso told the court.

The judges adjourned the trial until next Tuesday to hear
witnesses' testimony.

A team of lawyers for Pollycarpus had said that the indictment
was neither accurate nor comprehensive and was difficult to
understand. The pilot, they said, was just a scapegoat in the
murder case because the police could not capture the true killers
of Munir.

Mohammad Assegaf, who leads the team of lawyers, said on
Tuesday he would challenge the court's ruling in a higher court.

Pollycarpus is being charged with killing Munir by putting
arsenic into orange drink offered to Munir during a Garuda flight
from Jakarta to Amsterdam almost a year ago. Prosecutors claimed
that the defendant's "nationalistic passion" had driven him to
murder Munir, whose campaigns for human rights were deemed
detrimental to the unitary republic of Indonesia.

Munir died two hours before the plane landed at Schiphol
International Airport. An autopsy conducted by Dutch authorities
found lethal quantities of arsenic in his body.

The police have also named Garuda flight attendants Oedi
Irianto and Yeti Susmiarti as suspects and put them under city
arrest for assisting Pollycarpus in the murder.

Pollycarpus is being charged under Article 55 of the Criminal
Code on premeditated murder, which carries a possible death
sentence.

Assegaf said it would not be possible for the trial to unravel
the truth surrounding Munir's death.

"It is strange that according to the indictment Pollycarpus is
representing nobody in the murder, and that he committed the
murder for no reason," Assegaf said.

He was skeptical that the five witnesses who would testify
would be able to tell the court how Munir was poisoned and who
was behind the poisoning.

Also attending the court hearing on Tuesday were Pollycarpus'
wife Herawati and Munir's wife Suciwati.

Outside the courtroom, Suciwati called on prosecutors to be
more careful in making the indictments because she believed that
Pollycarpus was not the mastermind of the murder.

"I'm certain that Pollycarpus was not the mastermind. He was
just an operative," Suciwati said.

She asked the prosecutors to take into account the
recommendations of the government-sanctioned fact-finding team
assigned to help the police investigate the case. The team had
linked the murder to high-ranking individuals within the National
Intelligence Agency (BIN), with Pollycarpus making numerous
contacts with certain BIN officials before and after Munir's
death.

State prosecutor Domu P. Sihite said the prosecutors would
present five witnesses, including Suciwati, Garuda flight
attendant Yeti Susmiarti and former Garuda president director
Indra Setiawan in the coming hearings.