Munir poisoned 'during flight'

JAKARTA: A University of Indonesia toxicologist Ridla Bakri told the Central Jakarta District Court on Thursday that Munir was most likely poisoned during the flight from Jakarta to Singapore.

"It's impossible that it occurred in Jakarta. It could have taken place on the Jakarta-Singapore flight, or during the transit in Singapore," he said.

Ridla, who was a member of a government team who flew to Amsterdam last year to obtain the results of an autopsy carried out by Dutch authorities on Munir's body, was speaking as an expert witness in the trial of Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, the main suspect so far in the murder case.

Pollycarpus, a Garuda Indonesia pilot, was accused of putting arsenic into a glass of orange juice to be served to Munir during the Sept. 6, 2004 flight bound for Amsterdam.

But there have been allegations that certain senior intelligence officials were also involved in the killing of Munir, a top human rights campaigner. -- Antara