Kontras urges SBY to speed up Munir probe
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to make public the report of a fact-finding team assigned to help the police in investigating the murder of top rights campaigner Munir.
Kontras also urged the President to quickly take follow-up action based on the results of the six-month investigation carried out by the government-sanctioned team, whose assignment ended on June 23.
"These two measures are crucial to explaining to the general public about what actually happened and why Munir was killed, and to boost the efforts to get to the bottom of the murder," the human rights watchdog said in a press statement on Thursday.
The demand came after the government decided at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that it would not set up a special commission as suggested by rights activists to ensure that the case was thoroughly resolved.
Kontras expressed disappointment with the government's decision not to set up the special commission, which it was hoped would report directly to the President.
The National Police has set up a special team to investigate the Munir case and act on the fact-finding team's report. Former head of the fact-finding team, Brig. Gen. Marsudhi Hanafi, was also appointed to head the police team.
But Kontras said that it would be difficult to rely solely on the police to resolve the case, which it was believed involved powerful and influential people.
"We believe that there is a lot of political obstacles to solving the Munir case, so it needs the direct support of the president," it said.
Kontras emphasized the need for the creation of a separate commission, whose main tasks would be to oversee the conduct of the investigation and to ensure that the legal process was properly complied with from the investigation stage through to the prosecution stage.
Kontras also said that based on Presidential Decree No. 111/2004 on the establishment of the fact-finding team, the President should have announced the team's findings.
However, the President only made copies of the report available to the military chief, police chief and State Intelligence Agency (BIN) director.
In the report, the team described the murder of Munir as a "conspiracy," involving former and serving senior officials of BIN and national flag carrier Garuda.
Munir, the co-founder of Kontras and Imparsial, and a strong critic of human rights violations by the military, died from poisoning onboard a Garuda plane during a flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam last September.
His body was examined by experts soon after his flight arrived at Schipol Airport, Amsterdam. The autopsy showing that his body contained 465 milligrams of arsenic.
So far, the police investigators have charged three suspects in the case. A Garuda pilot, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, has been identified as the prime suspect and will be charged with premeditated murder under Article 340 of the Criminal Code, as well as document forgery.
The two other suspects, Yeti Susmiyarti and Oedi Irianto, were flight attendants on the Garuda flight, but they have not been detained.