Pollycarpus 'facilitated Munir murder'

Eva C. Komandjaja and Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Police investigators said on Monday that Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, the only suspect so far in the murder of human rights activist Munir, was not the main executor, but "facilitated" the murder to happen.

Head of the investigation team at National Police headquarters Sr. Comr. Anton Charlian explained that Pollycarpus was assigned to make sure that Munir was aboard the aircraft and that he was sitting in a designated seat.

He said that the Garuda pilot had contacted Munir via cell phone before the flight and gave his business class seat to him during the Jakarta-Singapore flight.

Munir, co-founder of human rights organizations Imparsial and Kontras, was found dead onboard a Garuda flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam on Sept. 7 last year.

An autopsy conducted by Dutch authorities found excessive amounts of arsenic in his body, indicating that he was murdered on the one-hour leg of the flight from Jakarta to Singapore.

Pollycarpus was declared a suspect on Saturday after five days of interrogation by police.

He has denied all involvement. The Garuda pilot said that he was assigned to the Sept. 7 flight as a security aviation officer to check a Garuda plane in Singapore. But investigators later discovered that his assignment letter was written more than a week after the flight, and that it was signed by Garuda's vice president of corporate security Ramelgia Anwar instead of the operational director as is normally the case.

"We're pretty confident that he's involved in the (murder) case because there are so many discrepancies we found in his statements and through documents we've collected," Anton said.

Anton, however, acknowledged that the police had not yet found others involved in the crime, such as the person who put the poison into Munir's meal during the flight, and the masterminds behind the assassination.

With his known role in the case thus far, Pollycarpus could be charged with assisting a premeditated murder and also document forgery.

Director of transnational security at National Police headquarters Brig. Gen. Pranowo Dahlan said that police were continuing to question Pollycarpus on his role in the murder.

Apart from Pollycarpus, Pranowo said police were also questioning Rohainil Aini, secretary to Garuda's chief of pilots, who was also indicated by the government-sanctioned fact-finding team as a person of interest in the case.

The fact-finding team had previously indicated that at least six persons, including Pollycarpus and Rohainil, were involved in the conspiracy. The others were Garuda's former president director Indra Setiawan, vice president of corporate security Ramelgia Anwar, and two unnamed persons linked to the State Intelligence Agency (BIN).

Separately, Pollycarpus' lawyer Suhardi Somomoeljono expressed his annoyance at police for naming his client as a suspect "prematurely" before examining evidence from Dutch authorities.

The evidence includes records of interviews conducted by Dutch authorities of passengers and Garuda employees, case reports, and several tissue samples Dutch doctors took from Munir during the autopsy.

The Indonesian Ambassador for the Netherlands was scheduled to meet with officials from the Dutch ministry of justice on Monday to discuss mechanisms for turning over the evidence.

Elsewhere, newly-appointed Garuda president director Emirsyah Satar said that the airline's management was ready to assist authorities in their investigation into Munir's murder.