Ex-BIN official resists fact-finding team's summons

Ex-BIN official resists fact-finding team's summons

Ridwan M. Sijabat and Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite requests from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the
former secretary of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN)
Nurhadi Djazuli said on Wednesday that he would not comply with a
summons from the government-sanctioned fact-finding team that is
tasked to investigate the poisoning death of human rights
campaigner Munir Said Thalib.

"Regardless of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's political
commitment to a thorough investigation into the case, the fact-
finding team has no authority to question Pak Nurhadi because
according to Presidential Decree No. 111/2004, its main tasks are
to help the police examine the case freely, accurately and
completely and not to conduct its own investigation," Nurhadi's
lawyer Sudjono told a media conference that was also attended by
the former high-ranking BIN official.

Nurhadi remained silent through most of the media conference.

He was BIN secretary when Munir died aboard a Garuda flight
from Jakarta to the Netherlands on Sept. 7, 2004.

Dutch authorities found excessive amounts of arsenic in his
body. Susilo signed a decree for the establishment of the fact-
finding team (TPF) in order to assist police probe the case.

Sudjono was responding to the fact-finding team who have
already summoned his client twice to clarify the possible
involvement of BIN in the case. The team turned its attention to
BIN after questioning Garuda employees.

Police are focusing their investigation into Garuda executives
and employees, and have named pilot Pollycarpus Budihari
Priyanto, stewardess Yeti Susmiyarti and flight attendant Oedi
Irianto as suspects. Pollycarpus was a Garuda aviation security
official who offered Munir a seat in business class, moving him
from economy class, during the flight from Jakarta to Singapore.

BIN has demanded that the fact-finding team carry out its
questioning at its office in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, and
that written questions be submitted in advance.

The President has ordered all sides, including BIN, to
cooperate with the fact-finding team, whose tenure will end in
June.

Sudjono accused the team of committing character assassination
in publishing his client's identity, even though his status in
the case remains unclear.

"TPF is breaching presumption of innocence because our
client's identity has not been kept anonymous until he is found
guilty (by a court)," he said.

Recently appointed the Indonesian ambassador to Nigeria,
Nurhadi has denied allegations that he played a role in
"assigning" Pollycarpus to the flight on the day of Munir's
death.

"No. Absolutely not. Many have misused my name and faked my
signature to do wrong things during my tenure (in BIN)," he said.

Responding to Nurhadi's refusal to face a questioning, fact-
finding team member Usman Hamid asked BIN not to act defensively,
"unless some of its members were involved in the murder".

"The team and BIN are now in the process of defining the
protocol of the investigation, therefore, we ask BIN officials to
respect the ongoing process. Especially in the case of Nurhadi,
the team wants him to respect the processes as well," said Usman,
who is also the coordinator of the National Commission for
Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), which Munir
founded.