Police offer Pollycarpus protection for fresh lead
Police offer Pollycarpus protection for fresh lead
Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The National Police are ready to protect a Garuda pilot convicted of involvement in the murder of human rights activist Munir if he leads investigators to the mastermind of the killing.
National Police chief Gen. Sutanto said on Thursday that the convict, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, may be withholding information to protect accomplices or friends.
"The police intend to determine the mastermind of Munir's killing as soon as possible, but we can only do so with his (Pollycarpus') help," Sutanto told a hearing with House of Representatives Commission I on security, information and foreign affairs.
Investigators, the police chief added, had urged Pollycarpus to share information regarding people who orchestrated the crime.
The Central Jakarta District Court sentenced Pollycarpus to 14 years in prison on Tuesday, a far lighter sentence than the life imprisonment demanded by prosecutors as the judges believed there were others behind the murder.
In response to the verdict, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered law enforcement and intelligence agencies to continue their probe to find the mastermind of Munir's killing.
Munir, a cofounder of human rights watchdogs Kontras and Imparsial, was found dead aboard a Garuda flight on Sept. 7 last year, two hours before landing in Amsterdam. Dutch forensic experts found a lethal amount of arsenic in his body.
Pollycarpus served as an aviation security official, who during the Jakarta-Singapore leg of the flight offered his business seat to Munir. The court also found Pollycarpus guilty of falsifying documents in order to board the same flight as Munir.
Two Garuda flight attendants, Oedi Irianto and Yeti Susmiyarti, have also been named suspects in the murder case. No other people have been investigated as suspects despite a government-sanctioned fact-finding team's recommendation that the police probe a possible link with National Intelligence Agency officials in the killing.
The police have questioned former BIN deputy Muchdi and secretary-general Nurhadi Djazuli in connection with the case. However, BIN has repeatedly denied any involvement in the murder.
Sutanto said the police would have to get solid evidence before they could follow up the fact-finding team's recommendation.
"We can't question people based on assumptions," Sutanto said when asked whether the police had taken the fact-finding team's report into account.
BIN chief Syamsir Siregar, who also attended the hearing, said that he would cooperate with the police to solve the murder case as instructed by the President.