SBY told to empower Munir probe team

SBY told to empower Munir probe team

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

With its June 23 deadline looming, the Munir murder fact-finding
team has yet to complete its task of identifying the killers of
the noted human rights campaigner, and the government is being
urged to extend the team's term and empower it so it can finish
its job.

The team, assigned to assist the National Police in
investigating the murder, has found it hard to conclude the probe
because several top officials of the National Intelligence Agency
(BIN), including its former chief A.M. Hendropriyono, have
refused to cooperate with the team.

"I propose that the President extend the team's working term
and grant it extraordinary powers equivalent to the police's
authority. With such power, all persons and institutions can be
forced to cooperate with the team," Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, a
legislator with the United Development Party (PPP), told The
Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Lukman, a member of a special team formed by the House of
Representatives to monitor the Munir murder probe, said the
extension of the government-sanctioned team's term was needed to
help it collect more evidence, which he believed the National
Police would have difficulty in investigating.

"During its six-month working term, the team has achieved
significant progress including uncovering possible links between
several BIN agents and the murder," Lukman said. "The other
progress that the team has made is uncovering the involvement of
several Garuda crew members in the matter."

"Therefore, the President should consider giving more time and
opportunity for the team because this case is a test case for him
(the President) and the nation in resolving problems of human
rights abuse," Lukman said, warning that the public and
international community were closely monitoring the case.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono set up the fact-finding
team on Dec. 23 to help police investigate the poisoning death of
Munir. The rights campaigner died while aboard a Garuda flight
from Jakarta to Amsterdam on Sept. 7 last year. An autopsy by
Dutch authorities discovered excessive levels of arsenic in his
body.

Because sources and documents from BIN required further
clarification, Susilo extended the team's working term by another
three months until June 23, 2005.

Meanwhile, the team's secretary general, Usman Hamid, said
legal arrangements between Indonesia and the Netherlands
authorities were also required to enable the team to question a
Garuda passenger with Dutch citizenship, Lie Khie Ngian, who sat
beside Munir during the same flight to Amsterdam.

"The Netherlands has scrapped the death penalty from its legal
system and it has a commitment not to provide legal assistance to
countries, including Indonesia, which maintain this most severe
sentence. In the case of Munir, such a condition has also been
set out by the Netherlands (for the team to question Dutch
witnesses), unless our government can be more cooperative by
promising not to impose the death penalty on Munir's killers,"
Usman told the Post.

Lie is known as a chemistry expert. In the middle of the
investigation into Munir's death, Lie and his wife visited the
East Java capital of Surabaya for "personal reasons", a source
said.

During his brief visit to Surabaya, the National Police had
time to question Lie but found no strong indication that he
played any role in the murder. He was believed to have given a
bottle of mineral water to Munir when the arsenic began to take
effect, added the source.