Pollycarpus letter of duty 'not in line with procedures'
Pollycarpus letter of duty 'not in line with procedures'
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The controversial letter assigning Garuda pilot Pollycarpus
Budihari Priyanto, the main suspect in the murder of top rights
campaigner Munir on board a Garuda plane, to join the fateful
Sept. 6, 2004, flight as an aviation security officer could be
categorized as a fake, according to an expert.
University of Indonesia criminal law expert Chaerul Huda said
that the letter had not been issued in line with the proper
procedures and therefore could, according to the Criminal Code,
be categorized as a fake.
"But whether it (the letter) is valid or not depends on the
institution. If such a practice has been going on for years,
then it could be a normal thing," said Chaerul as quoted by
newsportal detikcom.
He was speaking as an expert witness in the Central Jakarta
District Court on Wednesday during the trial of Pollycarpus.
Pollycarpus has been accused of conspiring with two other
Garuda crew members to murder Munir by putting arsenic in a glass
of orange juice to be served to Munir during the Jakarta-
Singapore leg of a flight to Amsterdam. The indictment says that
Pollycarpus swapped his business class seat with Munir's economy
class seat to facilitate the murder.
The indictment also describes Pollycarpus as a staunch
nationalist who saw Munir as a "hindrance to government
programs." Pollycarpus has denied the allegation.
During the police investigation, the senior Garuda pilot said
that he joined the flight from Jakarta to Singapore as an
aviation security officer as shown by a Sept. 4 letter of
assignment.
But a separate investigation carried out by an independent
team found that the letter was signed by Garuda vice president of
corporate security Ramelgia Anwar instead of operations director
Rudy A. Hardono, who is in charge of all Garuda pilots.
The letter was also allegedly typed and signed on Sept. 17,
more than a week after Munir's death.
Munir, a co-founder of human rights watchdogs Kontras and
Imparsial, died two hours before the Garuda plane landed at
Amsterdam's Schiphol International Airport on Sept. 7 last year.
An autopsy conducted by the Dutch authorities found a lethal
amount of arsenic in his body, leading to the conclusion that he
had been murdered by poisoning.
A report from the now-defunct government-sanctioned fact-
finding team also implicated former and serving officials of the
State Intelligence Agency (BIN) in the murder. It is widely
believed that Pollycarpus is also a BIN agent.
The current government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
has been facing pressure from both activists at home and overseas
to quickly solve the murder and bring the perpetrators and
masterminds to court.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the panel of judges in the Central
Jakarta District Court, Cicut Sutiyarso, demanded on Wednesday
that the prosecution put other key witnesses on the stand during
Thursday's hearing.
They include the former secretary-general of BIN, Nurhadi
Jazuli, and the former deputy director of BIN, Muchdi P.R., both
of whom failed to attend Wednesday's hearing.
But prosecutor Domu P. Sihite said that it would be difficult
to get Nurhadi to attend in court on short notice as he was now
in Nigeria where he served as Indonesia's ambassador.