Expert charges for signature

Expert charges for signature

JAKARTA: Forensic expert Mun'im Idris charged up to Rp 10 million to mark his signature on his ownown expert testimony on the killing of four Trisakti University students in 1998, forcing an inquiry team to scrap it from its report.

Usman Hamid, secretary of the inquiry on human rights abuse in the Trisakti, Semanggi I and Semanggi II incidents, said on Monday that Mun'im included in its autopsy report that there had been attempts by the military and the police to obscure the investigation on the bullets, used in the shootings.

"But, because we have yet to reach a deal on the price while the inquiry no longer has much time to complete the dossiers on the case, we've decided to put Mun'im's testimonies in the recommendation section of the report," Usman told a media briefing.

According to Usman, Mun'im had set a fee of Rp 2.5 million for his expertise and had previously received Rp 600,000 from the House of Representatives special committee investigating the same case.

The inquiry team, established by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has completed the correction on the dossiers and planned to submit it to the human rights ad hoc prosecutors of the Attorney General's Office on Monday.

"But, Attorney General M.A. Rachman is sick, so we've been told to postpone the plan," Usman said. --JP