Pollycarpus changes his tune on Munir case
Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, currently on trial for the murder of human rights activist Munir, on Friday gave a different account from his earlier testimony as cited in the indictment.
However, judges and prosecutors did little to question why defendant had changed his story.
Munir was found dead on board a Garuda Indonesia flight from Jakarta to the Netherlands on Sept. 7, 2004. A Dutch autopsy found an excessive amount of arsenic in his body.
The indictment said Pollycarpus recognized Munir as "someone who caused problems in the implementation of his own programs to support the Unitary State of Indonesia". An earlier team investigating the case alleged Pollycarpus was a State Intelligence Agency (BIN) agent.
The case file also mentioned that the defendant had monitored Munir's activities since 1999, and had admitted making phone calls several times to the rights campaigner to confirm whether he would fly from Jakarta to the Netherlands via Singapore aboard a Garuda Indonesia flight on Sept. 6 last year, to continue his studies there.
But at Friday's hearing, Pollycarpus denied that he made phone calls to Munir's cellular phone. He did admit to exchanging his seat with Munir only to be courteous to "a well-known passenger".
"I had never known him (Munir). I had never met him," Pollycarpus told the court.
Presiding judge Cicut Sutiarso tried to confirm Pollycarpus' statement with the indictment by asking: "But according to the indictment, you met him (Munir) for the first time at a rally held in the Bundaran Hotel Indonesia traffic circle?"
"Yes, I saw him for the first time in that rally," Pollycarpus replied softly.
"Did you make several phone calls to his (Munir's) cellular phone before his departure to the Netherlands?" Cicut again asked.
"No ... I never made any calls to his cellular phone," Pollycarpus said.
Pollycarpus said he only realized he and Munir were onboard the same plane when the they were in the boarding room at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, waiting for the flight to Changi Airport in Singapore.
"Can you explain to the court as to why you offered your seat in business class to Munir?" prosecutor Domu P. Sihite said.
"I didn't intend to offer my business-class seat to him (Munir), who held an economic ticket. I just tried to be nice to a public figure when I offered him my seat. But, somehow, Munir deemed my suggestion serious, and later moved to business class. I couldn't stop him," Pollycarpus said.
As a pilot, Pollycarpus admitted he was not authorized to offer his or any other seat to any passenger.
Pollycarpus insisted that his being on the same flight as Munir was coincidental. The defendant said he had been assigned by top Garuda officials to help repair a Garuda plane that had engine problems in Singapore.
The panel of judges adjourned until Nov. 28 to hear the prosecutors' sentencing demand for Pollycarpus.
A government-sanctioned fact-finding team has linked former officers of BIN to the murder case of Munir.
However, the ongoing trial is largely ignoring those findings, with the indictment not specifying the alleged involvement of other alleged BIN officers.